OK Elisa, but why would it be qualified for national historic landmark status if our status is as landscape architecture district?
Riverside Info » About Riverside
Q & A from the National Historic Landmarks Program
(88 posts)-
Posted Wednesday Mar 14, 2007 11:43 #
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I have no answer to that - I only knew the location of the area you asked about! Maybe because it was original to Olmsted's plan?
Posted Wednesday Mar 14, 2007 11:55 # -
I am guessing they are included since they were designed by Olmsted. You can see the layout in the original plan.
"The additional 46 acres includes a residential area with house lots and streets arranged along the railroad corridor as originally planned by Olmsted, Vaux and Company."
Since the Zoo is really Riverside-West (or should we say, Riverside-Westerly), it is all the more of a good reason to hook up with, integrate a bit with, the zoo, and the zoo traffic. The zoo's mission is conservation and green and preservation. So is Riverside'/Olmsted's mission. They have 2.5-3.0 million visitors a year. We can get a piece of that action. If we were going to give away Olmsted designed space to any entity, I am glad it was to the zoo. It is complementary to Riverside.
Our workshops said that we don't want Pace buses in town. I agree. We'll have some kind of old timey trolley(s).
Posted Wednesday Mar 14, 2007 11:59 # -
Yes, but it is not Riverside the town that is the landmark, but Riverside the historical landscape architecture district that is the landmark. That is why the amendment applies for the addition of the curved streets and gaslights (other things perhaps that I cannot recall.) Do they have these over there?
Posted Wednesday Mar 14, 2007 12:13 # -
Yes, I know they have curvilinear streets there. I think they may even have gas lamps there.
Posted Wednesday Mar 14, 2007 12:16 # -
Okey-dokey.
Posted Wednesday Mar 14, 2007 12:25 # -
To try and clarify this: Riverside includes the easternmost part of the Brookfield Zoo. The Village zoning map shows the westernmost boundary to be Golf Road, which runs past the west side of RBHS, between the school and the football field, and that line continues straight through the zoo to 31st street . I thought the boundary included the football field and Hollywood school but I guess it doesn't, even though that is a Riverside Dist 96 school. So maybe we operate a school located in another town. We get a portion of the zoo sales tax and Brookfield gets the rest. On the latest Riverside Zoning Map, dated jan 2007, it shows the western boundary continues straight south from Golf Road to where it runs into First Avenue after that curves west. The Boundary on this map seems to cut right through lots on West Quincy and Waubansee so that Riverside's western part includes the streets west of First Avenue and South of the high school up to that line. The map also shows some "ghost" blocks along the river on the west bank south of Forest in what would have been a park but now is just floodplain. It's very odd.
The concept of bringing people to Riverside after they visit the zoo is, I think, not too practical, because they are probably already wororn out from schlepping kids around the park. I see it and the wayfinding signage perhaps bringing more cars into town but not really tourists or customers. I have a project I want the EDC and the Village to consider for a money-making event to be held primarily at the Zoo and peripherally in Riverside. Both the Zoo and the Village could make some substantial money from this annual event. We'll see if anything comes of it.
Posted Wednesday Mar 14, 2007 12:37 # -
My wife had exactly the same reaction that you had, spatny. But the Riversdie to the zoo idea might be more like a Riverside-there-and-back-to-the-south-entrance-of-the-zoo, or a means of getting people to the zoo idea -- A PR scheme of increasing Riverside's view to the world.
I was told that the Zoo stop metra line usually has a lot of people, who walk to the zoo from there. The idea would be that they stop at Riverside. We get them there. Or at least direct them there. Someone said that the zoo stop might be close to the same distance to the south entrance as the riverside stop.
They get to see this great place. That is the minimum value that I see in this idea. Of course have signage. Of course we will tell them that they are in an international biosphere of fengshui and a nationl historic landscape designed by master landscape architect , Olmsted.
So the primary mission and benefit is to Expose Riverside to others who otherwise would not have known about Riverside. The coffee and the lunches and the dinners and the house purchases and the business ownership will happen later after they see this fine charming place that time forgot, maybe coupled with future visits to the zoo.
I am assuming that there is a significant segment of the 2.5-3.0 million people going to the zoo who appreciate the fine things of life, and I assume that our town is one of those fine things of life.
It is Art without going to the Art Institute. (tm)
Let's get the Library light fixed and 'fix that Tower building problem'. Don't forget the flower boxes in the VC condo windows and the ivy at the VC.
Posted Wednesday Mar 14, 2007 14:05 #
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