Vision
To complete the vision of a memorial on each side of the Mississippi River, the Gateway Geyser was designed and constructed by St. Louis–based Hydro Dramatics. It was completed in 1995 at a cost of $4 million. Three 800-horsepower (600 kW) pumps power the fountain, discharging 8,000 U.S. gallons of water per minute (50 L/s) at a speed of 250 feet (76 m) per second. The fountain has an axial thrust of 103,000 pounds-force (460 kN); water is jetted out of the 6-foot (1.8 m)-tall aerated nozzle at a pressure of 550 pounds per square inch (3.8 MPa).
On June 17, 2005, ownership of the Gateway Geyser and its 34 acre (14 ha) site was transferred to the Metro East Park and Recreation District. The fountain now serves as the cornerstone for the Malcolm W. Martin Memorial Park, which opened officially in June 2009.
The Geyser was illuminated for the first time on October 28, 2005, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the St. Louis Arch.
On September 16, 2006, ground was broken on the Mississippi River Overlook project on the park grounds. The 40-foot (12 m)–high overlook platform provides a scenic view of the Gateway Geyser, the Mississippi River, and the St. Louis Arch and skyline. It opened in the spring of 2008.
The geyser has three scheduled eruptions every day from April 15th to October 15th, at noon, 3 PM and 6 PM. No eruptions are scheduled from October 16th through April 14th.
Read more about this topic: Gateway Geyser
Famous quotes containing the word vision:
“You had such a vision of the street
As the street hardly understands;
Sitting along the bed’s edge, where
You curled the papers from your hair,
Or clasped the yellow soles of feet
In the palms of both soiled hands.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“I had a vision of them put together
Not like a man, but like a chandelier.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“No sooner does a great man depart, and leave his character as public property, than a crowd of little men rushes towards it. There they are gathered together, blinking up to it with such vision as they have, scanning it from afar, hovering round it this way and that, each cunningly endeavouring, by all arts, to catch some reflex of it in the little mirror of himself.”
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881)