Roosevelt Park planting aims to reflect Michigan Central's stature

DetroitDad · June-09-09, 07:54 PM

http://modeldmedia.com/developmentne...velt19509.aspx

Funding from Daimler Financial in the amount of $35,000 will enable a group of Corktowners to plant the semi-circle section of Roosevelt Park immediately facing the Michigan Central Station. The total project cost is estimated at $75,000 including donated time and equipment from Classic Landscape Ltd., Urban Detail, Greater Corktown Development Corporation, Michigan Forklift and Los Pistoleros.

This planting is phase two of planned improvements to Roosevelt Park....

Blarf · June-10-09, 12:02 AM

Sounds like a waste a money.

MIRepublic · June-10-09, 12:08 AM

I guess all flower plantings are a waste of money then, too.

Blarf · June-10-09, 12:25 AM

Not all, just ones that cost $35,000.

**reddog289** · June-10-09, 01:29 AM

If I am correct there is going to be a car show there this summer.Hope the cars don't mess up the garden.

MIRepublic · June-10-09, 02:28 AM

Originally Posted by Blarf

Not all, just ones that cost $35,000.

So, what's the acceptable upper limit of cost for a flower planting?

Anyway, the rather poor rendering of the plan and the rest of the story:

This planting is phase two of planned improvements to Roosevelt Park; last year the group planted the triangle of land at Fourteenth and Michigan. The long-term goal is to build an amphitheater and some type of activity center such as tennis or basketball courts or a skate park. "We see the city as lacking in green space," says Phillip Cooley, one of the involved residents and a partner at neighboring Slow's Bar-B-Q. "We feel this park has potential -- it used to be a grand space."

The planting will begin on June 12 and wrap up on June 19. The landscaping design takes the geometry of the facade of the train station as its inspiration.

**Gistok** · June-10-09, 03:09 AM

Interestingly enough the entire Roosevelt Park and MCS footprint were built in a grand style befitting of Paris or Washington DC. After Detroit limited the extent of the Woodward Plan of radiating streets to just downtown, the MCS/Roosevelt Park area was another part of Detroit built to a grand plan... sadly not extended. Few train stations in the country had a more magnificent setting.

**Chub** · June-10-09, 03:19 AM

I think an amphitheater in the park is the best idea I've heard yet. Damn, I wish I would have thought that!

**gnome** · June-10-09, 03:58 AM

Gistok, I thought the L'fant's plan was trashed almost as soon as it was Grand Circus was platted. Are there any other remnents of the old hub and spoke plan? There is sort of a quarter wheel at Gratiot and Randolph ....

anyway, the MCS was built a hundred years after L'fant, are you saying that he planned where the station was to be built?

MIRepublic · June-10-09, 04:09 AM

How did you read that from what he said? He simply said the Woodward Plan was inspired by the plan of DC, not that L'Enfant personally mapped out early Detroit.

**gnome** · June-10-09, 04:21 AM

go pick a fight with someone else LMichigan, my question is to Gistok and whether he has info I don't know about. I asked him to clarify, that's all.

**PSewick** · June-10-09, 10:45 AM

Ah, no one knocked on my neighbors' doors and asked if it was okay to build an *amphitheater* around the block from us. I really value peace and quiet, and I'll be really bummed if outdoor concerts ever start being held a block away.

[[Why not use the one on Belle Isle? I suspect it is not used to its full potential.)

**raptor56** · June-10-09, 11:14 AM

The picture rendering is missing all of the homeless tents that typically dot Roosevelt Park during the summer flower season

**Lonyo exit** · June-10-09, 11:29 AM

Great plan. The bums will love using the flowers as pillows as they sleep off their buzzes.

**Gistok** · June-10-09, 11:36 AM

Gnome, no there's no connection between the downtown remnants of the Woodward Plan and the MCS/Roosevelt Park. I was just rambling about "vistas" and monumental settings.

I was only suggesting that the fact that the City Beautiful/Belle Epoch style of grand placement of structures around boulevards and parks [[common from the 1850s to the beginning of the 20th century) was used in both places.

**Detroitnerd** · June-10-09, 11:39 AM

If I remember right, Woodward's L'Enfant-inspired plan was platted and enacted in 1807 and abandoned by 1818.

**Gistok** · June-10-09, 11:47 AM

Geeze, everyone is "abuzz" about flowers... nowhere in that article does it even mention or show flowers. The ambiguous computer generated image shows what appears to be ornamental grasses, like those being planned for the Midtown Loop.

I think that the city learned long ago that flowers should only be planted near "high visibility" major thoroughfares [[such as lower Woodward and Jefferson), or in places [[such as around the Belle Isle Conservatory) that can be locked up at night.

I don't think that a flower garden is in the works at Roosevelt Park.

Also... another Amphitheatre? Isn't one planned for the Dequindre Cut? And aren't the 2 Amphitheatres that were built [[one on top of the other) at Chene Park eventually going to be razed for ANOTHER amphitheatre on the site of Ford Auditorium. Plus they already have a smaller amphitheatre on the lower level at Hart Plaza. I'm starting to get leery of amphitheatres...

crawford · June-10-09, 11:56 AM

Originally Posted by raptor56

The picture rendering is missing all of the homeless tents that typically dot Roosevelt Park during the summer flower season

There were tents out there all winter too.

gravitymachine · June-10-09, 11:58 AM

Originally Posted by crawford

There were tents out there all winter too.

really? i didn't see them in my twice daily drive through the park. probably because they've moved out back under the bagley overpass

gravitymachine · June-10-09, 12:01 PM

Originally Posted by Gistok

I don't think that a flower garden is in the works at Roosevelt Park....

i don't think you know what you're talking about

Retroit · June-10-09, 12:23 PM

What the heck? 6 foot tall grass with concrete walkways leading nowhere? Is this a joke? Why not just plant some corn? At least you could feed the homeless.

**gnome** · June-10-09, 12:49 PM

gistok, thanx for clearing up a muddy picture.

BTW, hasn't ModelD proven itself to be one of least reliable of sources? How many times have they blown smoke up our respective skirts with harebrianed, pie-in-the sky fake outs?

I'm sure they are overtaxed with all of their tasks, but seriously they're as reliable as a drunk at the end of the bar.

... and look at that rendering ... it smacks of renderings from Boydell's dildo shops in the Russell Industrial Center and Kressge Building. I'm sure seen that skinhead hipster before.

**Gistok** · June-10-09, 03:03 PM

Originally Posted by gravitymachine

i don't think you know what you're talking about

Well I guess I put too much stock into the computer generated image... since you're "in the loop"... what is going to go there in the way of "plantings"...

**wolverine** · June-10-09, 03:30 PM

Dang! Why don't you all just not drive past Roosevelt Park for awhile. It's not like you care about it anyway, so why worry about what other people are doing with their money. I'd say at least people are trying to improve something that looks like sh!t.

**kraig** · June-10-09, 03:39 PM

Originally Posted by Retroit

What the heck? 6 foot tall grass with concrete walkways leading nowhere? Is this a joke? Why not just plant some corn? At least you could feed the homeless.

Besides, we have 6 foot tall grass all over Detroit already.