I’m a Massachusetts guy. My ancestors came over on the Mayflower and I’m a descendant of Rebecca Nurse of Salem Witch Trial fame. I was born in Massachusetts and I live in Massachusetts. But when you’re from Springfield you have to admit that you’re only “kinda” from Massachusetts; you don’t have the accent, you don’t use words like bubbler (bubbla), and tonic (tuonic) and when reports and lists emerge about various qualities and characteristics of state culture, you know that it isn’t about “you”, it’s about Boston.
In the 70’s that was a good thing, Boston was thought of as nothing but a shit-hole with its busing violence, combat zone, crime, corruption, murders and fires; it bears almost no resemblance to today’s “Teflon Towne” where nothing bad that happens can ever tarnish it. And therein lies more than one problem. For a small provincial city being compared to Boston is not helpful: No, Seiji Ozawa doesn’t conduct our symphony and Cam Neely doesn’t play for the Falcons (I’m old!), but those things were never likely to happen, were they? A different problem arises with news items like these:
Massachusetts Best State to Live In
The problem is that, while at the same time retaining Springfield’s immeasurable self-loathing, local leaders both political and economic somehow convince themselves that this data has something to do with us, who we are, and the decisions we’ve been making for the past 30 years.
Unlike Boston, we don’t know what we’re doing and, also unlike Boston, we can’t afford to make stupid mistakes. If we knew what we were doing we wouldn’t put up a parking garage (with no ground floor retail!) between a newly renovated train station and Main Street, we wouldn’t contemplate razing a fantastic building, a wonderful example of 20th Century urbanism at the 100% corner of the entire region in order to replace it with a parking garage or surface level parking, we wouldn’t keep a park virtually closed instead of activating it for the type of residents (poor people of color) we wish weren’t there, and we wouldn’t place the University of Massachusetts downtown campus in the one (f-ing!) building downtown which, by virtue of its on site parking, makes it a pod unto itself and therefore unable to accomplish the goal of getting people onto the sidewalks.
We’re not Boston. And we’re doing it wrong. A successful place must prioritize people and accommodate cars and not the other way around. We have too much parking, not too little. Springfield has as many great individual spaces as any city its size on this continent, but we’ve managed to make sure that getting from the Armory, to the Quadrangle, to the Apremont Triangle, to Stearns Square, to Court Square, to the Riverfront, to Forest Park and on and on and on is always “obstaculizado” (so much better than hindered!) by auto centeredness, blight, carelessness, or stupidity.
No more off street parking on Main Street!
Stop trying to build a city for the people we wish were here and start building it for the people who are here!
Identify the obstacles to connecting the city’s already great places and make them as pedestrian friendly as possible. Then we can talk about getting Seiji Ozawa to play for the Falcons…or something like that.
Some Obstacles:
The Armory site and gates: Open too infrequently (some not at all) and absolutely no effort whatsoever to turn to the green space of the NATIONAL PARK into a place for active recreation. Like it or not, it’s the space best suited for active recreation connected to the downtown, at least until the Riverfront Park fixes its more complicated problems. Lighten up, the site’s historic buildings won’t suffer at all from having people throw a frisbee around on its grassy areas, and how cool if the police were to adopt its lower spaces, right by their headquarters, as the center of a law enforcement community outreach recreational initiative!
Dwight Street. Auto centered ugliness, one way status, blank faced buildings and surface parking make it the worst pedestrian street by far in the city. The good news is it just cuts off the downtown’s best recreational space and the region’s top cultural institution from Main Street, the MassMutual Center, and the South End. Make it a two way street and focus on improving its east-west crossings.
The Riverfront. Much more needs to be done than can be expressed here, but keep the brush down to maintain the view of the river, try to overcome I-91 as best one can, add active recreational opportunities (basketball? By the Hall of Fame?) and find programming, programming, programming. Beg Six Flags to create a water link to the park. Allow them to build a mini amusement park within the park. Fund it, find a way. The place is beautiful, but it’s so isolated and its use by “good people” so irregular that it’s not a place I can comfortably tell people to use without wondering about actual issues of safety.
Locust Street at the intersection of Mill Street, and Belmont and Fort Pleasant Avenues. Holy Crap what an ugly pedestrian shit storm of an intersection this is if you want to get from a pretty awesome South End to one of the great urban parks in the world. What isn’t wrong? Are there even crosswalks? How many sidewalks to nowhere are there? Are those trees inside the cement bunker for your protection or theirs? How much more undulation would there need to be in the asphalt for it to qualify as a roller coaster? Fix this intersection and the stretch between it and Sumner Avenue becomes one of the best neighborhoods in the state; AC Produce, La Fiorentina, Milano’s, Frigo’s, Red Rose, Mom and Rico’s, Frank’s Flowers, and the new MGM on one end, Friendly’s and Forest Park on the other!
For a little balance, it hasn’t all been terrible 🙂
1) We’re probably the first city in the country that has made a concerted effort to weave a casino plan into an existing fabric of a downtown, focusing on points of entry, street facing retail, and figuring out ways to get people to leave the footprint and get out on the sidewalk. If you recall there were other casino plans out there that were not so urban friendly nor walkable!
2) Agreed on the poor state of the Locust/Mill intersection, however in the last several years we started with downtown Main Street (where we reintroduced on-street parking thus shrinking vehicle travel lanes, introduced pedestrian countdown clocks and decorative crosswalks) and then took those improvements from downtown all the way to the South End just short of the Locust/Mill intersection. If you recall, downtown Main and south end Main were pretty ugly and far more car-speeding-friendly (not that it still doesn’t happen) before these improvements.
3) Also in the South End, coupled with a major overhaul of the Hollywood apartments, the city purchased several properties to expand Emerson Wight park – much of which had been hiding out of sight, to expand and reconnect it with the neighborhood. Activating it for, yes, the neighborhood of residents that live there!
4) The city applied for and was designated a TDI District to advance our Worthington St. plan. Important for a lot of reasons, but one is an effort to bring programming like outdoor movie night that started last fall geared towards residents. That will continue this year, and Stearns Square and Duryea Way are currently being examined on how to spruce the public areas up this year and better connect them to Union Station/Amtrak.
5) We actually now have a Ped/Bike complete streets plan, and it’s been adopted by city council. http://www.livewellspringfield.org/pedestrian-bike-plan/
6) Brought Gil Penalosa here a couple months ago: http://www.masslive.com/news/index.ssf/2015/11/gil_penalosa_international_exp.html
There’s definitely a car-first culture but I think many of these things have at least gotten a conversation started on some of these issues.
Of course, I’ve written about the positives on many occasions. To clarify, I don’t blame anyone in office or working for the city now for Locust Street, I just think it’s an obstacle to critical mass in the area; I put the “obstacles” at the end in an effort to be more than just a naysayer, not to add them to the 4 specific criticisms I made.
One those: The re-opening of Union Station is a huge piece and a great achievement, I applaud it. But the alteration of the original design of the Main Street façade is awful. Main Street IS beautiful, I walk it as often as I can, that’s why placing a parking garage without (at least) some ground level pedestrian interest is a HUGE wasted opportunity. The data shows a walkable place has just a few feet to capture pedestrian interest and that chance is gone now for a generation. If money was short(and I know it was) just leaving a place in the design for a future retrofitted ground floor presence would have been preferable.
Regarding the Shean Block, you are right, the MGM plan is amazing. Contemplating how much more respect a casino developer is giving our pedestrians than local developers reminds me of the line in Jurrassic Park about the “blood sucking lawyers”! Imagine MGM going to all that effort to create an integrated casino…and the very FIRST THING A PEDESTRIAN EXPERIENCES LEAVING THE MGM FOOTPRINT HEADING TOWARD THE DOWNTOWN IS A SURFACE PARKING LOT!!!!
If that happens it will merit the creation of an award for stupidity in urban design and planning, and if that plan is subsidized by public funds so much the worse!
Regarding Outing Park: Great work! It does not excuse leaving Pynchon Plaza deactivated in hopes men in suits will use it. I met with a park official I admire greatly(more than once)but my ideas for activating the plaza were rejected specifically because, by which I mean I was told in so many words, we don’t want this to be for local residents and kids, we want this to be used by businessmen in coordination with the convention center.
The author of this article should be in charge of Springfield revitalization! Why does it take soooo long to get anything done? And when it does happen, we walk away from it and don’t look at it again for another 25 years!
Totally agree…we definitely need an answer for Pynchon Park. I tend to think a building should be in that space rather than a park but it is something that needs an answer soon, it’s been too long.
Sad to see the parking ramp being done in such an old-fashioned manner that does nothing for the street level. Especially in that location! Huge missed opportunity. Check out what a comparably-sized city that is receiving all sorts of positive national press for its downtown revitalization is doing: http://www.inforum.com/news/3932213-developers-pitch-big-plans-replacing-two-downtown-fargo-parking-lots
I should note btw (and this is a CRUCIAL point), Fargo didn’t start with parking when their downtown revitalization efforts kicked into high gear almost 15 years ago. In fact, they ditched parking minimums, doubled down on transit and encouraged infill housing and mixed-use (much of which occurred on flat-surface parking lots). This mixed-use parking project is a result of that success. The key lesson from Fargo is that you absolutely do NOT start with parking. http://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2015/12/15/best-of-2015-robust-growth-and-development-without-mandating-parking
I feel the need to comment on the assertion that Springfield denies poor people access to parks. It is one I disagree with because all people must pay the same fee to enter Forest Park. I might as that given the national average of family size to that of blacks and whites, and the one car one fee policy in FP, Hispanic ethinic minorities are not at all being required to pay more-it appears this was the assertion.
Second, swinging open the gates to the Armory is a fine idea but what about the security of students, is that a concern? Should it be? When I am on the grounds of the Armory to research by collection of US Springfield Long Arms, I see kids going in and out of class rooms. Would a mix of students from all walks of life playing Frisbee be nice to see, I think so.
However, what does enter the local news are stories like the one below. By the way, last time I checked, Van Horn was free and open to “poor people of color”. As a kid growing up on Carew Street, that little water park was a fun respite from the summer heat. Perhaps, out of fairness to all people, we should charge a fee to enter that park too?
Of course not, public spaces should be open and accessible but how do you propose events like the one below are properly addressed?
Mom accused of assaulting photographer at park, Victoria Torres of Springfield facing assault charges
By Anthony Fay
Published: July 23, 2014, 6:16 pm | Updated: July 23, 2014, 7:58 pm
SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (WWLP) – Springfield police have arrested a woman who allegedly assaulted a college student because she was upset about pictures being taken near a children’s water park. Police Sgt. John Delaney told 22News that Victoria M. Torres, 32, of Springfield was arrested following the incident at Van Horn Park Tuesday evening.
I was specifically referring to Pynchon Plaza. In general I agree that Springfield provides great parks to all of its residents. Regarding the Armory site; in my opinion it is a greatly underutilized asset and viewing the neighborhood people as somehow a danger to students is the root of the problem. I remember the Van Horn incident, but I don’t see it as typical of Springfield parks. Thank you for your comments!
I’m just gonna leave this comment: It’s as silly for Springfield to compare itself to Boston as it is for, say, Allentown to compare itself to Philadelphia. Yes, Springfield might be the second-largest city in a small state, but unless I’m vastly mistaken, it isn’t the second-largest city (or metro!) in all of New England, and in terms of the whole Northeast, Boston might be alpha-minus but Springfield’s maybe a gamma city at best …
That said, even many of the smaller Northeastern cities are starting to see redevelopment in their cores as the major cities become increasingly cost-prohibitive. Newark, NJ, is an example (though it is arguably also New York’s “sixth borough”).
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