Star Tribune Editorial: Gold Medal Park sets a high standard
"They took all the trees, put em in a tree museum. And they charged the people a dollar and a half just to see em. Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone. They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot."
So begins an editorial by the Star Tribune about the new Gold Medal Park, a private/public partnership. It continues:
A lot of urban green space has been paved over since Joni Mitchell wrote those words nearly 40 years ago. But today Minneapolis puts a new spin on the old song.
"We tore down a parking lot and put up paradise," said Thomas Oslund, the talented landscape architect and designer of Gold Medal Park, the first substantial green space added to downtown since Loring and Elliot parks in 1883 and the extension of West River Parkway in the 1990s.
Considering that the Park Board added paved parking lots and permitted Mintahoe to add additional hard surface on Nicollet Island, apparently it does take a private entity to tear down parking lots and make parks. The Star Tribune concludes by saying:
This park, with its infusion of private money and operational control, should be seen not as an affront to the Park Board but as a supplement to a system that remains the city's crown jewel. Parks and water define Minneapolis.
As other cities are discovering, private help is essential in adding green benefits to barren downtown districts.
Read the entire editorial at the Star Tribune website.