Here's a great article discussing all the features of the park including some things we haven't heard about!
Willis Winters Gives Us a Slightly Soggy, Kind of Early Walking Tour of Main Street Garden
By Robert Wilonsky in News You Can Actually Use, Actually
Tue., Oct. 27 2009 @ 2:11PM
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfa...d_of_early.php
Willis Winters, assistant director of the city's Park and Recreation Department, was kind enough to give Unfair Park a tour of the $17-million Main Street Garden this morning -- and by "garden," I mean mud pit and swimmin' hole. Hence, Winters's acknowledgment that, yes, it's quite likely the garden -- the first of several planned downtown parks -- won't be quite ready for its November 13 official debut, especially with more rain in the forecast for week's end.
"The rain is killin' us," says Winters. "We were originally shooting for November 5, and actually there will be quite a bit done by November 5. It will be presentable by November 13. We're trying to prioritize what will be finished right now. There's a slight chance that date will change. But that's due to scheduling, not construction." He's referring to the fact several council members are scheduled to attend the National League of Cities convention in San Antonio that week.
Still, he says, the park's "in good shape" for the November 20 City Lights Christmas-tree lighting ceremony, when DowntownDallas will debut New York-based landscape architect Thomas Balsley's 60-foot-tall tree. (Addison-based Excitement Technologies, which has done work at Cowboys Stadium, is handling the lighting and production, says DowntownDallas's Kourtney Garrett.)
"As you can see, we're trying to work around" the mud and water, Winters says. "All the activity today is on the perimeter, and we're trying to scrape the mud to the center. That's the easiest thing to finish at the last, so now they're just using it as a staging area."
After the jump, Winters walks us through the park's amenities. But first question's first: Will the Lily Pad, the city's first foray into the eat-and-drink business, serve alcohol? "They want to," he says, mentioning beer and wine and the TABC. So, with that out of the way ... jump, but watch the mud.
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Which brings us to an area that, at present, looks like a cemetery -- but only because, well, it is. What you see here are rescued remnants of buildings that once stood on this part of downtown, which Winters, who's also a noted city historian, was delighted to keep in order to pay homage to downtown's past.
"For example, if you look across the street and look at the limestone on the original Hilton, we took the stone and saved them to redisplay them here," he says, noting that they do, indeed, look like tombstones. "It's an artifact to commemorate the buildings. And there will be an interpretive graphic that will talk about the history of this part of downtown and its development from the 1870s to current day and show how it transformed from small houses to big buildings."
And, finally, our last stop: the stage. Though Winters says there will actually be two -- including a smaller one just to the left of the main one, closer to Commerce Street. Also near there will be the old neon "PARK" sign once directing people to the gold-ringed parking garage that used to sit on the spot. It's being refurbished for installation next month.
"I just love the fact this park is surrounded by so many eras of Dallas architecture," Winter says. "There's the 1913 City Hall, the 1926 Hilton, the Tiches building from the '20s, the Mercantile from the late '40s, the Statler and library form the late '50s and the Comerica building from the '80s. It's surrounded by all these significant buildings, and we felt by putting this park here it would open up all these great vistas and remind people of their prominence and importance."
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