The other day while I was walking through downtown Richmond I stumbled on a small space with huge potential. It’s basically just a concrete slab, but what makes it special is that it’s located right in the middle of a city block. The concrete is connected to one building that forms an “L” around it. The area is accessible by three different alleys which all meet at the base of a somewhat beautiful, mature tree.
With some love, this could be a place to congregate just like the La Colombe near Logan Circle in D.C. The benefits of using these interior spaces is that they are quieter than the city streets and they are often cooler in the summer months because the buildings provide shade. They are cozy spaces, the diffused light is relaxing, and there is something charming about the irregular shapes. I love the surprise and delight of waking down an alley, turning a corner, and finding something you wouldn’t have expected,
The approach that is most familiar to me (I actually worked and parked in the building to the left years ago) is below. I love the way the buildings frame the old window and steeple of Second Presbyterian.
After you turn to the right, you start to get a glimpse of the destination. The area also starts to become more charming: the alley transitions to cobblestone, instead of a parking garage you have old brick and stained glass, and the tree is visible as well.
Despite being completely forgotten and unloved these granite stones are beautiful and the whole section would clean up very nicely.
This is the view from the space that I’m interested in. I appreciate how much there is to look at even in this small space. It feels like the medieval section of a city: winding, ad hoc, dense, and built to the human scale. The tree would also provide shade in the summer and a beautiful accent.
Here are two views of the actual space.
I am so in love with this idea. I had a similar vision for a space in Tyler many years ago and still believe in the potential of this sort of retrofit to bring new life and charm to cities. Whatever zoning process that’s required should be fast-tracked. Whatever the building around this space becomes (it’s currently being renovated), this should be a cafe or similar commercial space, with bistro lights, live music, and otherwise completely transformed into a beautiful and charming refuge in the middle of downtown Richmond.
I recently visited the Negro Burial Ground just east of downtown Richmond in Shockoe Valley. My approach to this site was across a VCU parking lot and through a tunnel under Broad St. As you walk through the tunnel, you emerge onto a huge empty field of beautiful grass that was once yet another parking lot in downtown Richmond. In recent years, the asphalt was removed and this area was designated “A Place of Contemplation and Reflection.” I appreciate this area mostly because it’s a complicated place. There aren’t physical buildings that most people would consider “historic,” but what happened on this one piece of ground (the public execution and careless burial of enslaved and free people) is considered enough to make the place significant today. Once a place of fear and violence, it has been restored to the people of Richmond as a place of silence and careful thought.
While I think the site itself is certainly worth visiting, what I really care about is a place located just above the actual burial grounds. From this vantage, you can see that less than 50 yards away from this place of contemplation is Interstate 95 in all of its glory. The cars and tractor trailers fly by on this crazy asphalt slingshot that shoots cars straight through the heart of my city. Like all highways, it’s a totally anonymous no man’s land where you don’t walk, you don’t slow down, and you don’t typically notice the historic burial grounds nearby. When you’re on a highway like this, you don’t care much for where you are because you’re more focussed on where you’re going. That’s essentially the nature of movement.
I believe that the potential of every space is limited by real and imagined barriers. If there are real, perhaps topographical, barriers to building a higher density downtown than I’ll be content to give up this dream. I just don’t think that’s the case. Most barriers I would consider “real” are primarily economic, but as long as people continue to build farther south I’ll contend that they might as well build downtown. To me, it’s the imagined barriers that I can’t stand. If it’s a zoning issue, some regulation, or a city of small dreams then I won’t be satisfied. Cities do not become great with small dreams. Cities become great when people do bold things that the mainstream calls crazy. Take, for instance, the Seattle Public Library (pictured). This building is a strikingly beautiful and completely functional structure that could theoretically be built anywhere on any square piece of land. In Seattle, they love it. Could we love this library? I should add, there are people in Tyler doing great work to revitalize our downtown, but I’m just not sure whether the public will appreciate it.
Another possible impediment to Tylerites embracing urban life is a lack of 
Look at the arial photo of Tyler to the left. These nine city blocks should not look like everywhere else in the city because if they do then they will be no longer be significant. Downtowns are places where you can live to not only experience the diversity of other people’s lives, but most importantly you can personally add to the diversity of self expression, culture, perspective, race, ethnicity, etc. When we begin to add to this multi-cultural society and invest in the community we become a part of organizations and we learn what it means to be citizens instead of consumers. I don’t want us to “consume” downtown as entertainment the same way we sometimes consume church, media and everything else. Rather, we must commit to downtown as an idea and be unified on our goal at the outset. This idea is that, in many ways, downtown is what we look to as the zenith of our city’s development. I believe there is an inherent value to dense urban downtowns as the site of culture creation, political debate and financial stability. Our downtown is a vital element of the future of our city as the capitol of East Texas. We need a viable downtown option, but we have to want it. And we have to know what it is.
Highways and Hallowed Halls 