Park Development Versus Preservation
While most Mission 66 projects were intended for infrastructure improvements and visitor services, some urban projects involved the creation of entirely new attractions at the expense of the urban landscape. The Jefferson National Expansion Memorial on the St. Louis, Missouri riverfront entailed the demolition of forty blocks of the city to create a new urban park at the feet of Gateway Arch. The old warehouse district had been targeted for demolition by the city to eradicate "urban blight", and the arch and its park were seen as a means to this end, which had been pursued since the 1930s. Ironically, much of the exploration and expansion the new project commemorated had originated from the demolished riverfront district.
In Philadelphia, the development of Independence National Historical Park involved the creation of Independence Mall. The mall was designed to provide a vista of Independence Hall, necessitating the demolition of numerous 19th-century buildings.
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Famous quotes containing the words park, development and/or preservation:
“Mrs. Mirvan says we are not to walk in [St. Jamess] Park again next Sunday ... because there is better company in Kensington Gardens; but really, if you had seen how every body was dressed, you would not think that possible.”
—Frances Burney (17521840)
“The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our distinctiveness.”
—Gail Sheehy (20th century)
“The bourgeois treasures nothing more highly than the self.... And so at the cost of intensity he achieves his own preservation and security. His harvest is a quiet mind which he prefers to being possessed by God, as he prefers comfort to pleasure, convenience to liberty, and a pleasant temperature to that deathly inner consuming fire.”
—Hermann Hesse (18771962)