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Amusement Park Proposed for Libertyland site


Rardy

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This city seems to have a preoccupation with keeping things around that have outlived their usefulness: The Coliseum, Libertyland, Liberty Bowl, Sterick Bldg.

All should be bulldozed or demolished or something. There is no point in keeping any of these relics of the past around imo. Older people try to maintain that these places are still viable but the truth is they aren't and never will be again. accept it

:thumbsup:

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All of those are plenty useful. The Liberty Bowl is still being used; Libertyland and the Coliseum would stil be used if City Hall wasn't consumed by vaguely envisioned real estate speculation. The Sterick Building, I don't know what it's deal is, but there are plenty of skyscrapers older than the Sterick Building that are being used around the US, so there's nothing about its relicness that keeps it from being useful.

This city agrees more with the demolition and destruction philosophy than a philosophy of preservation. But I think the speculative demolition mindset virulent here that is out of touch with the rest of the world, not the other way around. Europe, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, New Orleans, even Los Angeles have greater respect for their architectural histories than Memphis has had. Of the cities I've visited in the United States, only Houston and maybe St. Louis have been more blind to their physical histories than Memphis.

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i can guarantee you that the Sterick will never find a buyer...no one in their right mind would buy that bldg and spend the amount of money it would take just to bring it up to code, much less for it to be usable. It would be cheaper to build a brand new generic building.

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Well, maybe it has to do with the cities you've visited (although I would disagree that LA has in any sense respected its architectural history more so than Memphis). All of them are much bigger, except for NO, so numerically they would have much more. But, per capita, Memphis has one of the larger inventories of historically-preserved structures in the country (can't remember the precise term of the preservation). And Memphis, more than most cities its size, is known for its preservation, sometimes to its detriment.
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Memphis still has a lot of great structures, but it's also destroyed much of its physical history and even more so our physical texture. We're incredibly pockmarked for a city almost 200 years old. Look at the Medical Center: from Manassas to I-240, from Poplar to Lamar, there's almost no structures over 50 years old, and much of it is surface parking.

Los Angeles did a lot of damage in the 50's (I'm thinking about the area of downtown called Bunker Hill and west of the Harbor Freeway, plus Chavez Ravine). But until they tragically bulldozed the Ambassador Hotel last year, I don't they'd demolished a major landmark in 25 years. Ironically, the less hip places of town, like Broadway, East Los Angeles, Mid City and mid-Wilshire, MacArthur Park, and Echo Park have been much better preserved than places like West Hollywood, where California bungalows are outnumbered by ugly 60s garden apartments 2 to 1 (it seems). Even there, they haven't destroyed their city texture.

Besides Los Angeles (which I still don't agree with), what cities -- that we want to emulate -- are worse than Memphis at preserving its history? We have people who care and have worked for preservation, but how are we known for it to our detriment? What's your source on that?

Are there any examples of a city that regressed because of preservation?

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Hehehe . . . East St. Louis, Camden.

when it comes to preservation to our detriment, how about Phil Jackson (not that I respect his opinion, cuz he knows where he can shove it) calling us I forgot what (Berlin? Strasbourg, something like that) because of all the old, perceived empty buildings downtown. Many folks perceive a preserved city as an old decaying city. I'm not one of them. I personally think that of the cities its size, maybe Birmingham rivals Memphis in terms of preservation, but other than that, you'd be hard-pressed to find many others. You have to recognize that there's a line that can get crossed. When preserving just for the sake of preserving could cross the line to stagnation. That's the line that must be respected.

Don't mistake what my meaning is. I like that Memphis is unique, and part of Memphis' uniqueness is the preservation of its history, as well as that almost palpable atmosphere that hovers around. We don't throw away our history. We don't throw away our skeletons. Most other cities trying to ascend in status would've destroyed the Lorraine. We almost revel in the skeletons that we have, which is a tribute to the city and an underappreciated service to the world to remember and learn from some of the bad things that have occurred.

Preservation just doesn't automatically equate to utility. Nor does destruction, I know. But a balance needs to be met, one that creates utility out of the preserved structures, that helps achieve progress, and doesn't descend into stagnation.

The idea is to promote the image of the city. Preservation can definitely do that. But it has to be done right, and productively, and not just out of fear of destroying something old.

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Jackson's comment that we looked like Dresden after the war is interesting because when I think of Dresden, which was firebombed, I think of piles of rubble -- brownfields, the pockmarks -- rather than empty buildings. Who knows what he really meant?

I agree with you about finding that balance between the new and the old. But I am pretty dead set against speculative demolition -- tearing things down now because one day we might find a new use. If someone has a plan for a new building to replace an older one, and they got real money for the plan, I think that preservationists should listen. But tearing down because someday you might come up with something...!!! In most of the examples we've talked about in this thread, the replacements don't exist even in the mind's eyes of the destructors. Brownfields don't fool anybody about the vitality of a city.

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I agree but largely only if the existing structure is maintained, with a couple extraordinary exceptions for architectural significance. I mean, even greenspace is better than a decaying building especially if it's either 1) a demonstrable health hazard or 2) a proven magnet/haven for criminal activity. Maybe some way to force a conversion to greenspace if new work can't begin within 3 mths of clearing the debris from a site? If it's well-maintained, I probably wouldn't support demolition. But, I don't know, I think we should be selective about what we preserve, and set in place higher standards for new projects (away from the strip malls and developments in the middle of parking lots) so we can reap benefits of renewal.
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