18 Cite Winter 1984 swerve the other way, you find yourself Phillip Lopate marching across someone's lawn, where Pursuing the line between pedestrianism and tres- Before diving into this critique, let us passing becomes paper thin. This is not quickly rehearse some of the charms of only the back streets, mind you, but Houston: its spaciousness; its trees; its important thoroughfares like Bissonnet. fine old houses; its grand, inspiring sky- the Unicorn: line {from a distance at least); its myste- How long can this "City of the Future" get rious no-man's lands of vacant lots, away without putting in decent sidewalks? warehouses, and railroad ties with their Outside of downtown Houston, one is not "darkness at the edge of town" uncanni- Public even required to reconstruct a public ness. Indeed, this is a city three-fourths of sidewalk after tearing it up for new which sometimes gives the impression of construction. being at the edge of town. "Perhaps only through a kind of inattention, the most Space in Houston Houston's streets give off the blunt mes- benevolent form of betrayal, is one faith- sage: Don't bother walking, it's not worth 1 ful to a place," writes Aldo Rossi. If so, it. Take the car. Such a suggestion must be Houston invites fidelity, because it is a particularly rejecting to citizens who don't strangely non-imposing environment. have cars. Make no mistake, the shabby Part of what makes Houston so lovable is condition of our sidewalks is a matter not that here you can think without distrac- of neglect but of policy: the sidewalk sys- tion, only marginally attending the not- tem will neither be completed nor its /ou-stimulating streets. present stock repaired so long as the ! rights of pedestrians are held in such Nevertheless, Houston for a city its size '•. contempt. has an almost sensational lack of convivial -- public space. I mean places where people What of the fights of streets themselves? congregate on their own for the sheer :l I ask not in a fanciful Louis Kahn manner, pleasure of being part of a mass, such but in the sense in which "an emphasis on as watching the parade of humanity, the spatial continuity of the street is an celebrating festivals, cruising for love, absolute prerequisite for the achievement showing tiff new clothing, meeting ap- of urbanity."2 pointments "under the old clock," bump- ing into acquaintances, discussing the —"«l MSI In Houston, time and again streets are latest political scandals, and experiencing <«, rerouted to dog leg around private homes pride as city-dwellers. or office buildings that stand in their way.' i The result is that oddity of Houston road- I am not speaking of Houston's public pattern so confusing to visitors and resi- buildings - its courthouses, schools, wel- dents alike: the street that dies in a dead fare centers, prisons, and so on - which I end, only to be reborn with the same am sure are quite delightful in their own name several blocks later, then to disap- way, but ruther of those in-between spaces pear, reappear again, etc, In a way, there is nir ihe public's enjoyment, such as something charming about this hide-and- squares, fountains, monuments, parks, and seek game with its slow. Southern promenades. These amenities tend to be rhythms. The maddening infrequency of viewed by residents of older cities as their View on McKinney Avenue looking west street signs and the street lamps to read natural birthright, like geographical fea- (Photo by Paul Hester) them, or the house numbers, all seem part tures cut by glaciers. On the other hand, of the hidden, esoteric, elusive face of those who have only known the new car- contribution to the public weal, and Public space also has political imputa- Houston. (Or is it a subtle expression of culture cities understandably must be as included enough public space to back up tions. To the degree that it promotes pop- hostility to newcomers?) impatient with these tiresome nostaligic the claim. Closer to home, the Wtter ular assembly, it raises the potential for, rumors of fabulous public space as they Gardens of Fort Worth - surely one of the on the one hand, a more direct, participa- I would also invoke the principle of pre- are of tales of a unicorn. The successes of happiest public magnets built recently, tory democracy, and on the other, anarchic serving the integrity of the street-wall if 1 traditional public space increasingly are drawing a mix of social classes and putting riots. We know that the original seat of were not afraid of being laughed at in the acquiring a mythological quality, like fairy them in a good mood (the one recent Greek democracy was a public square, the Houston context. Here, each owner tales about powerful grand dukes, titans of work by Philip Johnson that does not agora; medieval and Renaissance cities defends his right to set his building as far industry, or Olmstedian wizards who bear invite endless reservations) - also happens organized themselves around a market- off-line as he wants to. The recent setback no resemblance to present humanity. But to be the hub of a newly developing area place with a communal meeting hall; the regulations -which would compel new we must remember that these treasured ringed by luxury condos, convention cen- American town-hall tradition grew out of buildings to be placed a minimum of ten places were neither the result of magic ter, and Hilton Hotel. this same principle. The toleration of rad- feet from the curb - are admirable as far as wands nor of glaciers, but of strenuous ical orators in Hyde Park and Union they go, but what is the point of setback civic activity by people in the past not The Need for Public Space Square seems a functional outgrowth of laws when there are no functioning side- unlike ourselves. When it comes to good public space, public space. walks to begin with? The next "Woodway Houston approaches the Miesian ideal of Canyon" may be a little less cheek-to-jowl We have all sorts of wonderful excuses for "almost nothing." Why should Fort Worth The public-space tradition is opposed by a with its highway, but without the com- any deficiencies of urban design in Hous- or San Antonio have more to show in this strong current of anti-urban thought in mitment to create more of a walking ton, which we trot out enthusiastically: the respect? "If the city fathers, the big shots America that views crowds as "the mob" environment, it will still be a sterile office weather; the lack of zoning; the too-rapid of Houston, had been as civic-minded and or "the herd;" in any case, the enemy of park, albeit set back to a more "orderly" boom in population; the scarcity of beauti- as proud of their city as San Antonio's the rugged individualist. Anti-urban values starring line. ful natural features; the low-density were," offers a local planner, "Houston color our Chamber of Commerce religion, spread; the prohibitive cost of public space would be as pretty as downtown San Texana. Houston, as the biggest city in a Whichever way you turn the question, in the present economy; the free- Antonio. Simple as that." Being a relative state that is now predominately urban walking and public space are deeply enterprise, anti-tax ethos; the business newcomer, 1 don't know if this is an over- though it refuses to recognize itself as intertwined. The great plazas and squares community's "stranglehold" on municipal simplification or the crux of the matter. such, has suffered from this schizoid do not bloom in a void; they are fed by the government. While these explanations Nor do I understand why the fortunes that denial. Its resistance to city planning is rich pedestrian life of the neighborhood contain part of the truth, taken singly each were made in this particular boom town partly a way of putting off acceptance of streets around them. What makes Siena's appears to be a rationalization. For should have engendered so half-hearted a its urban nature, and partly a dread of the Piazza del Campo work so magnificently, I instance, consider the following. Many tradition of civic improvement among its often messy negotiations between conflict- discovered recently in Italy, was not just South American cities abound in attractive elite. We are not lacking in millionaire- ing political interests which an open the often-reproduced monumental ensem- outdoor plazas though their climates are donated hospital pavilions and art muse- planning process necessitates. Houston ble or the sloping funnel shape, but the at least as hot as Houston's. Chicago grew ums, but in those gestures that would help does not seem to have had much of a circulation pattern of 11 streets leading from 300,000 to nearly 2 million between to bring the city itself together as a work town-hall tradition; nor do its democratic into it, drawing walkers from the nearby, 1871 and 1900, and still managed to pro- of art. institutions at the local community level encircling commercial streets almost inex- vide increased public space. Low density in seem particularly developed. Indeed, the orably into its magnetic field. itself need not preclude the establishment Perhaps the fact that so much of Hous- weakness of the neighborhoods politically of neighborhood foci -witness some Scan- ton's population is not only new but tran- goes a long way toward explaining the In Houston, the lack of public space inhib- dinavian cities. (Moreover, downtown sient has a bearing here. Many people use city's shortage of good public space. The its festivity. There is an improverishment Houston is hardly low-density.) A zoning Houston as a stepping-stone, to make creation of public space is the most self- of ceremony, processions, and holiday rit- law here would by no means ensure im- money quickly and get out of this "ugly conscious urban act a city can engage in; it uals, because we have not even a modest proved public space. Good urban design town." In such an exploitative atmos- signifies a city's maturation through the "Piazza San Marco" for people to gather. for the public can still be done economi- phere, little thought is given to putting recognition of its responsibilities to the The Galleria is our Fifth Avenue, but you cally, as demonstrated by the new Battery anything back in. I have spoken to native public's rights to be a collectivity. cannot have an Easter parade in a shop- Park City promenade in Manhattan. Houstonians who take as a deep insult ping mall. We do have, however, the Houston has got plenty of untapped natu- this rip-off, this sneeting violation of their The Streets opening of the Livestock Show and Rodeo ral beauty. Oligarchical control of city hometown, yet they continue to wear a The most basic unit of public space is the in which the city elders ride horseback governments is the rule, not the friendly demeanor. Considering the prov- street. Has the populace been made to feel down Main Street. Here horses and ponies exception. ocations, Houstonians are a remarkably it has a right to stroll the streets, and that are less out of place than pedestrians. warm and hospitable people. However, the streets belong to it? We cannot blame greedy capitalism per se the city itself, as a built environment, is Monuments and Stadiums for the underdevelopment of public- rather inhospitable, impenetrable, and Try walking in most neighborhoods of Houston is a city without a symbol. You space. On the one hand, socialist govern- unfriendly to strangers, because there is so Houston (excluding downtown, which we cannot conjure up its image with simply ments have not produced a noticeably bet- "little public space here to mediate between will get to later). If you are lucky, you will an arch, an Empire State Building, a ter record in this area, On the other, the private homes and the impersonal find a semblance of a sidewalk - one nar- landmark like the Alamo, an Eiffel Tower. profit-motivated developers elsewhere corporate world. For all the local media's row square of concrete edged on both Not that this is necessarily bad. Ir permits have been quick to seize on the strategy of promotions of Houston as a brash, extro- sides by grass. After a rain the grass looks the imagination to roam; and better the cteating attractive public space as a draw- verted cookoff, the outsider is apt to find like rice paddies, the concrete is probably honesty of no symbol than a trumped-up ing card for their speculative property. it a very hidden city where you need spe- cracked, buckled and in grisly condition. logo rushed in to fill the void. Both London and New York have wonder- cial access, good "letters of recommenda- Moreover, it is often only big enough to ful such squares that continue to benefit tion," as it were, to begin to uncover its walk single file, which tells us something Still, there is much talk now of monu- generations of city dwellers though long secrets. Every metropolis is finally like about the city's attitude toward walking as ments "anchoring" various neighbor- ago lining speculators' pockets. Nowhere that, but there are some which allow the a social activity. Even single file, you can- hoods. While I doubt very strongly that does it say that the making of good public stranger to have the sensation of at least not advance very far without being the weightlessness of Houston - its eerie, space must be motivated only by idealism. holding the city's throbbing pulse and stopped by a giant puddle, ditch, wall of flat, floating quality - can be counteracted Indeed, Rockefeller Center, one of the sharing the best of its personality, merely weeds and vines, the concrete's sudden by a series of anchoring monuments stra- most profitable real estate gambles in his- by inhabitating its public space. Not so disappearance, or someone's compound tegically placed (a literal picture of Olden- tory, sold itself from the beginning as a Houston. fence pushing you onto the road. If you burg's anchor comes to mind), I applaud Cite Winter 1984 19 the effort and look forward to results. The ing catastrophe. tricky thing about contemporary monu- Masonry ments is that it seems a little too late in Downtown: Tunnels, Plazas, Fountains, the game for the solemn, patriotic bronze Arcades celebrations of civic pride, while the anti- In a city with few distinguishing land- unr heroic, post-modernist approach still marks, few real "places," the downtown smacks of coyness and calculation. will inevitably be regarded as a quasi- public space, The tragedy of Houston as Monuments are meant to outlive us, to be an urban place (and it only occurred in the passed from one generation to the next. In last 25 years) was the gutting of its down- The Human Condition, Hannah Arendt's town as a multi-use, retail, walking area crucial discussion of the public and private and its conversion to a single-use, corpo- realms, she makes the point that love of rate office function. This became inevita- s glory drove powerful men in ancient times ble when the old movie theaters were torn to leave behind triumphal arches and down, many of the small stores scrapped, other beautifying monuments. This per- and free-standing slab towers erected T fectly valid motivation - glory - has been whose street levels were given over to undercut, at first by Christian Antt-vanitas garage entrances or bank lobbies. Now morality, and more recently and seriously, corporate headquarters alternate, for the by anxiety about the earth's very capacity most part, with surface parking lots, and it -. ,•••;,- r I i»im to endure, and with it, a shifting of the is no longer inviting to window shop or image of the future to outer space. "Only even dally downtown. Park, do your busi- a c/ass/r^nateT/af ness, and get out. Masonry Imuiulc the existence of a public realm," wrote Houston-Galveston Arendt, "and the world's subsequent 629-6024 transformation into a community of It is regrettable that at the same historical fl things which gathers men together and moment Houston moved from being a relates them to each other depends racially segregated to an officially inte- entirely on permanence. If the world is to grated city it also converted its old down- contain a public space, it cannot be erected town into a more monolithically for one generation and planned for the white-collar (if not white) universe, and living only; it must transcend the life-span 1 redistributed its shopping and entertain- of mortal men."" ment functions to outlying malls where pre-existing residential patterns would The architect Bruno Taut believed that reinforce de facto segregation. I do not ff OH J t 'M * O-ft A R !V- rO U 1 $ r N f * every municipality should have a stadtk- mean to take away anything from the rbne or city crown, a sort of shrine to nobility of that struggle for Houston's inspire the rebuilding of society. Our integration in the '60s, or to question the stadtkrb'ne, if you will, is the Astrodome. genuine gains made since by some minor- (h would indeed become a "cult building" ity members in the corporate work place, if the Oilers ever put together a cham- but simply to note that the "social mix" pionship season.) The Astrodome is a role which the older sort of downtown moon rock on a lunar landscape. Built in might have played was considerably dil- the middle of Houston's love affair with uted by these changes. At the same time, the space program, its "forbidden planet" the city moved to place one particular type iconography has more to do with NASA of entertainment downtown, whose ticket A RESTAURANT than baseball. On a hot day, you are well prices and aesthetics would likely attract advised upon leaving the stadium to make only the middle and upper classes - TO INDULGE YOUR PASSIONS a beeline for your car. In any case, there is namely, high culture. nothing to detain you: the Dome, which could have been the hub of an interesting There are still pockets of downtown, neighborhood of cafes and bars where mostly along Main Street, where the LUNCH: MON. - FRL 11:00 am— 3:00 pm people could gather to discuss the game down-and-out hang out, clinging to (and afterward, is like a giant vacuum cleaner tacitly permitted to retain) certain store- sucking in tens of thousands and a few fronts and street corners by reasons of his- hours later spitting them out onto the toric territoriality. However, the poor heat-blasted parking lot. almost never venture into the under- ground tunnel system, which is strictly for 6628 MAIN STREET Imagine a city park landscaped over that the socially homogenized, office-staff pop- (MED. CENTER]! parking lot, where fathers could take their ulation. The decision to put so many of sons and daughters afterward, where downtown's retail functions below ground, friends could play catch and people lie in the tunnels built by office buildings, is a under the shade trees. At our sports stadi- key example of the movement away from ums, though subsidized by tax money, the public space toward privatization. The public is made to feel redundant and tunnels have leeched an entire economy unwelcome the moment an event is over. from ground level, and taken much of the Greenway Plaza is dead late at night. No street life and energy of downtown with matter how keyed-up you may be after a them. That would be a fair enough basketball game or rock concert at the exchange if they were more open to the Summit, you have no alternative but to sit general public. But whereas any damn fool in your car for half an hour, inhaling can happen upon interesting shops while exhaust fumes and waiting for the oppor- walking daily through a city's streets, you TAFT tunity to squeeze into the moving lane of need a guide to take you into the tunnels.' exiting cars. Compare this situation to Their random growth, in the absence of Madison Square Garden, Wrigley Field, or an overall coordinated construction, has the Boston Garden, where fans can spill made it very easy to get lost down there. BROADCASTING directly into the streets and walk off their In fact, the only real way you can master exuberance or disapointment. the maze and become one of the tunnel cognoscenti is to work downtown. CORPORATION There are so few opportunities in Hous- ton to linger en masse after an event, and In some ways, the tunnels are rather con- savor oneself as part of the emotional genial. They offer a more urhan stream of crowd. Better public transporration would foot traffic than is found in most parts of • Sound reinforcement- help. Then you would have an alternative Houston; people bump into each other, to driving - you could walk friends to the stop and chat; the occasional glimpse of a Public address systems next bus/train stop. Mass transit also boiler room is like coming upon a con- holds a crowd together. Anyone who has struction site. In these minimalist corri- •Sound masking systems ever taken the train to or from Yankee dors, slight differentiations of material or • Emergency public address/ Stadium on the night of an important lighting become giddy refinements, while game, and seen the subway cars fill up the sudden entry into "plaza-like" open- fire and life safety with fans, can attest to the carnival ings seems a thrilling event. Ultimately, • Intercom, paging, background atmosphere - liberating and sometimes a though, it is a mole's life, with vista con- little frightening. strictions that induce a monotonized tor- music by Muzak por. Monotonous, too, is the duplication of Total system design, installation and The Astrodome's and the Summit's exit store offerings - soup and salad bars, plans prevent any possibility of rampag- travel agencies, card novelty shops - service since 1958. ing teenagers taking over the streets; lopsidedly designed for a lunch-hour trade. crowds are dispersed immediately into This lack of merchandizing variety ensues atomized, separate automobiles. But a city from the folly of each office tower trying which takes the bigger chance with a to be its own self-sufficient "city in minia- crowd's freedom is also the livelier city. ture." No surface downtown retail area could ever get away with so little mercan- It has been suggested that the true mon- tile specialization, or so clone-like and uments of our age are the freeways. Cer- mediocre a level of food quality. But with- tainly this is the one "public space" on out access to the general public, there is which the most money and constructional no real spur to excel. attention has been lavished. The freeways do give us the vantage point for an urban Above ground, most of the so-called "pla- experiencing of Houston which is no zas" which our office towers extrude like longer obtainable on foot; and, if ever pseudopodia are sad drawing-board increasing density and utilization are abstractions, hard on the bottom and bru- marks of successful public space, then our tally unshaded - fine places for sculpture, highways are a hit. However, they do not not people. One is grateful for the good TAFT BROADCASTING CORPORATION promote interactional conviviality: con- sculpture, like the Barbara Hepworth 4808 San Felipe versation between citizens may be under- ensemble in front of the First City Tower. taken only at risk, and generally is limited But this corner, which seems donated to Houston, Texas 77056 to a few words just preceding and follow- the public by the angle of the bulding's 622-1015 20 Cite Winter 1984
setback, would be so much more satisfac- five years. Had I written this essay any indoor corridors compared to outdoor time a new activity center is built, this tory if there were also plenty of tables and earlier, it would have been even more • streets is that one cannot see the reassur- seems to be forgotten. The new is all chairs with umbrellas, or shade trees. As riddled with half-informations than it ing building tops of distant avenues; one covered with concrete, which is why those is, it seems ambiguous whether the space must appear now to native Houstonians. goes forward wearing blinders in this who have never been here picture us a city is meant to be private (still part of the I-'ive years from today, I will only shrug at miniature city that is insulated all too suc- of concrete. The Astrodome, downtown, building) or there for the public's enjoy- what now causes me chagrin. cessfully from the real city. Contact with the Galleria, and the whole South Post ment. The message I get is: pause a the weather outside is minimized both by Oak area would be so much more appeal- moment to admire the art, then keep One area I consistently try to avoid is the climate control and the introspective mall ing and cosmopolitan if they were some- moving. Galleria, As soon as 1 come within sight of design. how pulled together by majestic rows of its concrete panels I feel a migraine live oaks.fl In genera!, corporations do poorly at pro- approaching. Managing to combine the By contrast, if you are sitting or strolling viding public space, Either their plazas are twin nightmares of claustrophobic conges- in the Milan Galleria, it is an event to see Parks, Big and Small deserted or, if they become popular like tion and anomic vacuity, the Galleria is my the heavens open up and the rainstorm The most important public space at pres- the one at New York's Seagram Building, idea of hell. gusting just beyond the vaulted entrance. ent in Houston is probably H e r m a n n security guards are hired to keep off the Weather has always stood for nature in cit- Park. It is certainly "the people's choice," "undesirables." Corporate plazas cannot be The whole Post Oak area around the Gal- ies - the saving reality of that which is out The zoo is one of the very few places in considered true public space, as the urban leria is noteworty for having the most of our control, and provokes our amused town where families of all social strata designer Stanton Eckstut has argued: the concentration of buildings which is possi- resignation. It makes for solidarity among show oft their children on a weekend, and only way you are going to get true public ble to assemble without, at the same time, the urban mass, a good conversation star- where the energy of urban life is both space is if the city provides it and main- achieving anything like an urban texture. ter for strangers thrown under an awning. concentrated and mellowed by its sur- 6 tains it. Architects today are trained to build free- In Houston, however, efforts to immunize roundings. The Juneteenth concerts at standing objects, but quite apart from the place against its own atmospheric Miller Outdoor Theater provide some of A much more useful corporate architectu- whether the object is good or bad, what conditions threaten to reach a phobic our city's finest hours in the making of ral contribution to the public good in you get if you keep placing one free- level. community. Still, there is no disputing Houston would be the addition of porti- standing object next to another is a prolif- that "Hermann Park remains a conspicu- cos. We have an excellent prototype in the eration of objects. What are needed now Everyone knows about the interrelation- ously underdeveloped scenic and recrea- 7
Specializing in contemporary art by select regional artists custom framing by experts in conservation techniques
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Iboulevard qiallery 1526 Heights Blvd., Houston, TX • 869-8733 The Underground, Greenway Plaza (Photo by Paul Hester)
Of course, Bell Park has the luck to be sit- called "the underclass." All I can do is uated in a gentrified section of Montrose, reiterate that, in my view, the inhabitants surrounded by museums and townhouses. of a city have a right to public space, and By comparison, the little neighborhood that the rewards of good public space are parks over in the black and Chicano sec- so lavish, in terms of fostering a demo- tions of the East Side look untouched by cratic sense of community and a reality - GWiM gardener's hand. Of playgrounds like fostering well-being - that it seems more Emancipation Park in the Fifth Ward, all than worth the struggle to solve whatever A Little Cafe Out of the Way one can say is that they are absolutely problems might arise from such an effort. Serving American Regional & Ethnic Foods necessary, and essentially unfinished. If, as both Hannah Arendt and Richard In the barrios and the black wards, there is Sennett (in The Pall Of Public Man) have Lunch • Little Bites • Dinner more street life, perhaps reflecting cultu- argued, mankind has undergone a radical • Late Suppers • ral tendencies to utilize whatever is at shift toward privatization," and his resist- Full Bar with Espresso • Wine List hand as improvised public space. Men and ance to public life is now embedded at the women hang on porches and at corners, level of "the human condition," then why Omelettes after 10 p.m. bantering, arguing, singing, listening to bother? We have seen the last of good the radio, practicing jabs - a spectacle for public space in our time. If, on the other Open Tuesday thru Saturday which the rising minority unemployment hand, the problem is not so profound, 1708 Sunset Boulevard • Houston rate does wonders. While the poor may then with some goodwill, raised urban- • 713/528-2264 • indeed be better at appropriating their design consciousness, and a lot of money, .0 *l streets as communal recreation space, that Houston can catch up with other cities in is no excuse for assuming their vitality this respect. Money: there's the catch. should somehow be made to compensate How will we do it in the present econ- ^>zm>£iM&£#m for the lack of proper parks and facilities. omy? I don't know, but I doubt that Hous- On the other hand, what they do not need ton is in a worse economic hole than all is a strategy which would embrace their the cities of the past and present which whole neighborhood in a greenbclt, such somehow have found a way. Moreover, as the University of Houston seems to be Houston is dreaming if it thinks it can proposing for the area around its central reach the status of a world city by cash campus, now ominously renamed Univer- transactions alone, without lifting a finger sity Park. to create inspiring public space.a EVANS-MONICAL Conclusion Notes Houston has very little good public space. Many ideas in this piece came from conversa- AND KNOLL. Yet fragments and models exist, scattered tions with (i.e. were stolen from) Edouardo across the cityscape, that might teasonably Rubles. Stephen Fox, Drexel Turner, John be multiplied: the City Hall reflecting Kaliskt, and Terrell lames. THE COMPATIBLE REPRESENTATION pool. Bell Park, the Texaco Building's 1 Aldo Rossi. A Scientific Autobiography, Cam- arcade. North and South boulevards, the bridge, The MIT Press, 1981, 72. OF INCOMPARABLE QUALITY Bayou Show, Hermann Park's zoo and the 2 Kenneth Frampton, Modern Architecture Miller Outdoor Theater, among others. 1920-1943, New York, Rizzoli, 1985, 213. 3 "This is a condition of post-World War II sub- VISUALLY CAPTIVATING We could benefit from more lively gather- divisions and results from [wo conflicting prin- ing places chat promote a sense of play, ciples of then-current city-planning wisdom: collectivity, ritual, and urbanity. Every- subdivisions should have non-continuous AND FUNCTIONALLY EFFICIENT. where two major streets come together streets to discourage through traffic; street names should be continuous to avoid confu- could be celebrated with an urban design sion." Stephen Fox, letter to the author. that concentrated vitality. Instead, these 4 Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, Chi- crossroads are usually occupied by gas cago, University of Chicago Press, 1958, 55. stations. 5 I thank Ceil Price for being that able guide. 6 Eckstut, in conversation with author, Maybe I feel this lack of public space more November 1983. because I come from New York, and con- 7 This interpretation was suggested to me by sequently could be applying an inapprop- Kenneth Frampton, in conversation, December riate standard. Certainly, native 1983. Houstonians do not experience their city 8 1 specify live oaks because they flourish in this climate. Palm trees, unfortunately, have become as suffering from "placelessness." A long- the preferred status symbol in Houston, and time Houstonian has suggested to me the not only do they provide little shade but they following intriguing thesis: that older cit- go grey and limp after one good freeze, as we ies had more of a need for articulated pub- saw last winter. lic space because their homes were less 9 "Reclaiming Hermann Park," Cite, Spring comfortable. Houston offers a much 1983,2. higher standard of domestic comfort for 10 The arricles by Stephen Fox ("Big Park, Little the individual, much less public space, and Plans: A History of Hermann Park," Cite, this reflects the pattern for cities of the Spring 1983, 18-21) and Drexel Turner ('From future. Less to Moore: New Proposals For Hermann Park," Cite, Spring 1983, 24-27) provide excel- lent analyses of how its original Olmstedian Finally, I would be remiss if I did not vision was blurred, how its acreage was nibbled address an unspoken fear: that providing away by hospital grabs, roadways, and surface public space is "asking for trouble," parking lots, and how it might be improved because such places would become havens now. for junkies, rapists, muggers, vagrants, 11 Much as I am drawn to Arendt's and Sennett's and so on. It would be beyond the scope of "rise of privatization" thesis, 1 wonder how this article to disentangle in this attitude much hard historical evidence there is for this line of thinking, or if "public man" is, in his undercurrents of racism and classism from own way, just another lost Golden Age myth, a legitimate safety concerns; or to examine Nuhle Savage in reverse with which we tor- the legal and civil rights of junkies, ment ourselves. After all, the agora tradition vagrants, etc. to free assembly; or, more was never so robust that we can base a whole EVANS-MONICAL problematically, to understand the tricky "decline" scenario on it. dynamics by which one public space main- 2750 KIR8Y DRIVE HOUSTON. TX 528-207$ OPEN 9-6. MON.-SAT. tains a healthy diversity and territorial balance among competing users, while another is abandoned by the middle class to what has been somewhat pejoratively