When the design for the Hilton Garden Inn was first revealed this spring, Wayne Feiden, Northampton City Planning Director, quickly sought to reassure residents upset by its lackluster appearance. He published computer-rendered images of what the hotel would look like from Main Street. The lush foliage of Pulaski Park would mask the building and prevent the bland edifice from detracting from the wealth of historically significant architecture surrounding it. The ugliness would be masked.
Now, a little more than six months later, City Hall's got a brand new plan for the hotel and its relationship to downtown. This time around it's Pulaski Park that's ugly and needs a makeover, whereas the hotel will be framed by those trees not cut down to make way for the wide field of grass leading up to the Hilton. The city has set up a series of public meetings for residents to weigh in on the new design.
In the October 30, 2007 Hampshire Gazette, Kirin Makker, the director of Smith's architecture program, praised the design that included a large oval field in its center, comparing it to Rome's Campidoglio. Her comparison is valid, but not her conclusion that such a design will improve our park.
Michelangelo's design for the Campidoglio unites three official buildings (papal palazzos at the time, public offices now) with a shared courtyard that has an oval marble inlay in its cobblestone center, joining the buildings with a grand entrance. The only building in the Pulaski Park redesign to have its entrance facing the oval, however, will be a private business. Transforming this space into a hotel's courtyard will end its use as a public park.
Public parks were first conceived of during the mid-1800s in reaction to industrialization. They were an attempt to create a refuge for city dwellers from buildings and commerce. For decades, the stewards of public parks and green spaces have fought to keep private interests out.
Go online and take a look at maps of other cities. The green patches are separated from businesses and housing by roads or natural barriers. Consider the other public green spaces in Northampton or elsewhere in the Valley. How well would a McDonald's work in Childs Park? Why hasn't anyone opened a restaurant on the Amherst or Hadley commons?
This time last year, re-imagining Pulaski Park was on no one's priority list. Over the summer it's become City Hall's favorite issue, though, and officials have come up with a host of wafer-thin reasons the park deserves attention. The current design, they say, is behind the times and needs to be updated. The park's run-down. It's unsafe.
As a regular visitor to the park with my infant son, I know these complaints are unfounded and don't warrant scrapping what we've got. The park works as is, and however un-slick the '70s design, the 30-year-old (and older) foliage offers the escape from downtown that public parks are supposed to provide. It could do with some TLC, sure, but so could most of Northampton's infrastructure.
Without the multimillion dollar hotel coming in, would City Hall be calling for the park's updating?
The absence of a genuine public motive for a redesign—the fact that these city-sponsored planning sessions chiefly serve a private business—make City Hall's efforts to solicit public input hollow and disingenuous. Whether or not to have a hotel was the question that needed the public's input, not how best to window-dress the disaster only a politician and a developer could love. Should other downtown businesses expect "public" hearings and pro-bono architectural advice for how best to use taxpayers' money to beautify their entrances?
