Saturday, December 29, 2007

Brown Square Park Festival Site: Why?

This morning's paper contained an article on the City Department of Community Development's study of moving the "Downtown Festival Site" to Brown Square Park. I saw the Request for Proposals (RFP) for this project a while ago and it perplexed me. Why consider moving the site from its current home in High Falls to the far-removed Brown Square neighborhood, especially when the City is in the middle of investing millions in bringing back Manhattan Square? There is much to dislike about this ill-conceived plan that the D&C article did not bother to mention. As usual, it's up to me to cut the BS and get to the heart of the matter.

First things first, it's true that Brown Square used to be home to numerous ethnic festivals way way back in the day. Italian, German, Irish, Puerto Rican: the same ethnicities that settled the neighborhood were the same ethnicities celebrated at summertime festivals at the park. All of these festivals have since moved to other sites: Italian and German are held in Gates, Irish in Irondequoit, and Puerto Rican now held a stone's throw away at the Frontier Field VIP lot. Although I've always wondered why these festivals choose to locate where they do, does a return to the long-gone past make the most sense for our city and region?

The RFP for the Brown Square Festival Site study is fraught with shortcomings. First off: contrary to Commissioner Vazquez's thinking, Brown Square is not even downtown. Why move the "Downtown Festival Site" out of downtown? Shouldn't we locate such an important facility in a location that would maximize its contribution to the economic development prospects of our city? Sadly, there is very little opportunity for spin-off from a "Brown Square Festival Site." Much of the neighborhood has been turned into an industrial park or, even better, surface parking lots for Kodak Office. Across Verona Street from the park is the City Animal Shelter and cater-corner is an elementary school. If we move all of our festivals to Brown Square, most patrons will drive in, park at the area lots, enter the park, watch the musicians, eat the food, and then head back to their cars and drive off. This is not the type of situation that we should be encouraging. It is short-sighted, contrary to the tenets of successful city-building, and pandering to a neighborhood disappointed by the construction of Paetec Park.

Furthermore, the RFP does not call for any study of the surrounding parcels to determine their highest and best use should the festival site move to Brown Square. If we truly want to make Brown Square a successful area, it will need an influx of housing, retail, and services. It will need to shed its current suburban industrial park appearance and morph into what an attractive city neighborhood should be. For instance, why is there no consideration of the adjacent rundown industrial parcel to the immediate west of Brown Square Park along Oak Street? For Brown Square to truly be a "square," it needs to have streets on all four sides. As such, this parcel should be absorbed into the park thereby making it accessible on all four sides and maximizing its ability to contribute to the neighborhood's revitalization. As the City learned during the early years of the MusicFest, Brown Square in its current form is not spacious enough to accommodate large crowds. What will happen if and when these festivals outgrow Brown Square?

While I support the concept of improving Brown Square Park as a centerpiece for a neighborhood on the cusp of renewal, it is simply not the right location for a regionally-significant festival site. It seems to me that if we really want a "Downtown Festival Site" that will attract our region's best festivals and allow them all to prosper, such a site must be located in an attractive setting closer to the heart of downtown. The site should be visible from afar and easily accessible to all. It should provide significant opportunity for economic spinoff, creating opportunities for retail, restaurants, hotels, and housing. There is really only one location appropriate for such a facility: Manhattan Square Park. As I mentioned earlier, the City is in the process of spending millions on fixing up the park to bring it back to its former glory. What better way to ensure such glory than to make a commitment to it in the form of its dedication as the Downtown Festival Site? With the coming redevelopment of Midtown Plaza into the bustling home of Paetec's 1,200 employees, hundreds of units of new housing, new office and retail space, restaurants and hotel rooms, the siting of our region's most prominent festivals at Manhattan Square may finally bring us the vibrant urban environment so many of us want.

posted by Man About Town @ 9:52 AM Comments: 8

Monday, December 17, 2007

Winter Returns, As Do Same Old Complaints

If you're lucky enough to live in the beautiful Rochester area, or much of the upper midwest and northeast, you know quite well that winter weather has returned for the season. It's a great time of year: the holidays, football, ridiculous utility bills, back-breaking shoveling, the lovely sound of rock salt cracking beneath your boots. Ahhh yes, winter is everyone's favorite season for so many reasons; and one of those reasons has to be winter driving.

There really is nothing quite like driving in a snowstorm. For most of us, that means clearing snow off your car before getting going. When you've got a foot of snow to clear, and it's 10 degrees out, you turn into one of the most productive people on earth. Once you've cleaned off your car and hopped in, you turn on the heat and it blows cold for a minute. Now that's refreshing! Time to put the car in gear and head to work, home, or somewhere in between. Your engine fights you for the first few minutes as it struggles to warm up but that's the least of your worries. With the icy roads, you're more concerned with making sure you get from Point A to Point B in one piece.

Of course, not all of us have to deal with this routine on a regular basis. As a walker, I simply have to layer up, throw on my boots, and I'm on my way. Sure, it's a pain in the ass dealing with the often unshoveled sidewalks, the slush-filled intersections, and the constant feeling that you're about to slip and fall; but it's a hell of a lot better than risking your life in an unreliable commute by car. Every day I cross over 490 (lesser known as the Erie Canal Expressway) on my walk to work, and during these past few wintry weeks, I've noticed just how slow traffic moves. This brings me to my point: we don't have to live this way.

It seems to me that, given our long winters, it makes perfect sense that we live in denser, less spread out communities. There are many reasons for this. One, more of you will be able to join me on the sidewalk using your God-given non-polluting mode of transportation to get to work. Two, alternate modes of transport such as transit become a lot more viable when they serve dense neighborhoods and as a result, you'd be more likely to want to take the bus. Three, if we live closer to each other, there will be fewer roads to plow and a lot less stress on public budgets (lower taxes, anyone?). Four, if you still must drive, your commute will be much less lengthy and probably much more reliable. I'm sure there are many more reasons why a more denser community is preferable in our winter climate, but I'm not going to bore you with them.

The point is, if you don't like it, you can change it - you can move. I don't understand why the City or the Downtown Development Corporation hasn't started sponsoring billboards on the expressways around downtown with the slogan "If You Lived Here, You'd Be Home By Now." Take it from me, it's a nice feeling to find yourself moving as fast as the vehicles around you and you're not spending a cent on gas nor are you putting yourself at risk of serious injury (so long as you watch where you're going). Not that the fact is being lost on everyone. We've added thousands of units of housing in and around the downtown area in recent years and thousands more units are planned or underway. But it still amazes me how much sprawling development we continue to see on our periphery. I just can't see the attraction, especially given our unique climatological situation, to living so far away from everything. Furthermore, the more of you that make that uninformed decision, the more we all have to pay to subsidize you.

A lot of us complain about the weather and a lot of us complain about people who complain about the weather. Either way, it's easy to complain about something you cannot change. We can't change the weather and we can't change how people behave; but we can change how we live. So why complain about those things that are caused by our own choices? Why complain about things we actually can affect? Next time you find yourself stuck in weather-related traffic congestion, ask yourself, have I made the right choice?

posted by Man About Town @ 6:16 PM Comments: 5