CEMETERIES If you like exploring new cities, you’ve probably had this experience: you venture through an intriguing set of stone gates and onto the manicured grounds of what looks to be a plum of an urban park—until you see the headstones. Then you wonder if it’s OK for you to be there at all. The answer varies. Not all cemeteries are suitable for park
use—after all, no bereaved family wants a Frisbee match at a funeral—but older sites with few new burials can offer a green oasis already equipped with gardens, benches, and path- ways for running and biking. “Cemeteries are for the living,” says Mark Smith, sexton of the publicly owned Salt Lake City Cemetery. Smith rejects the idea that his facility is only for somber reflection. Rather, it’s “a hidden gem within the city,” he says, an open-space resource that can and should be used for something other than burial. In Atlanta, the Oakland Cemetery has become a true cul-
A Nebraska park board approached a cemetery director about hosting a performance of King Lear on the grounds. The director, whose own mother and father are buried on the site, had no objection. His reply to the raised eyebrows: “I asked my parents, and they didn’t say anything.”
tural attraction. Thanks to the local historical society, visitors can enjoy concerts, classes, and a popular Halloween festival featuring mausoleum tours by Victorian-era reenactors. (Ever mindful of sensitivities unique to event-planning on a burial ground, the organizers ad- opted a motto: “Enlighten, don’t frighten.”)
LANDFILLS If you think this idea stinks, consider that landfills are often the only large pieces of undeveloped space left within a dense metro area. As Harnik points out, creating a commu- nity hub from a dumping ground can be a chance to “correct longstanding environmental injustice to the surrounding residents.” Converting mounds of trash into a place you’d want to picnic can be an expensive undertaking, but the site itself is likely to cost little or nothing. And although decomposing solid waste emits gas, methane can be vented, captured, and sold: Oregon’s former St. John’s Landfill, now part of a wet- land natural area, earns more than $100,000 a year this way. Savvy landfill-park planners situate park buildings over
ground never actually used for waste disposal, while cover- ing areas that may “slump” as buried waste settles with resil- ient natural elements like grass and tree cover. The affection- ately named Mount Trashmore in Virginia Beach models this mix well, offering an extensive skate facility as well as acres of open fields. In combination, these resources draw more than a million visitors a year.
An early example of trash-to- treasure: New York City’s Corona Dump—dubbed the “valley of ashes” by F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby—was transformed to host the 1939 World’s Fair. Today, the site is Flushing Meadows Park.
48 · LAND&PEOPLE · SPRING/SUMMER 2015
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68