Quote:
Originally Posted by Pilton
Mr. D, ... Aside from the fact that there is just a little crappy seating once you get to Daley Plaza, what do you feel it needs to attract people?
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The elements of good plazas were
well-documented by William Whyte decades ago:
- Lots of seating, preferably movable chairs. Not 10 benches placed orthogonally to act as truck bomb barriers.
- Food. Imagine if Lavazza, Corner Bakery, or even Auntie Anne’s Pretzels had a kiosk out there open 200 days each year. Even better, imagine The Berghoff or Goose Island with a little beer garden on Daleyplatz in summer.
- Sun—and a bit of shade for a few days out of the year. Sun is a bit of a problem for Daley Plaza because of 69 W. Washington, Three First National Plaza, and the Chicago Temple to the south, but at midsummer or around midmorning and early afternoon it’s OK.
- A sense of partial enclosure. Having a section that was a few steps up or down, or something that partially screened one of the adjacent streets would be a good start.
- Something to engage visitors and encourage casual conversations. The programming does that a few dozen days each year, but other times the pigeons keeping warm on the eternal flame is about it.
- Enlightened management that welcomes most visitors but subtly discourages troublesome ones—not sheriffs deputies who insist on clearing the plaza at 1 pm and come out to chase little kids out of the wading pool.
Incidentally, we have a very fine plaza in Chicago: the lovely Stanley McCormick Court south of the Art Institute's Michigan Avenue entrance, whose centerpiece is Lorado Taft's
Fountain of the Great Lakes. Dan Kiley's sublime landscaping gives a sense of enclosure, water the little kids can touch, plenty of places to sit and eat lunch, hawthorns with the right combination of sun and filtered shade, and the right sense of separation from Michigan Avenue.