Bears in Railtown

Part 2 of a look at Railtown as-is and by-design. Part 1 can be found directly below this post.

City Hall Plaza
The space in front of City Hall is referred to in the largely ignored
"Sustainable Waterfront and Downtown Master Plan"
of several years ago, under
3.6.2 Proposed Plazas
as
"... an ideal location and size to become the City's primary outdoor living room."

 
This blog in several posts before/after the Plan encourages the City to make the Plaza actually representative of how it usually likes to advertise itself: certainly not as an uninspired/uninspiring space, with 8 poorly-cared-for-sort-of-dead flower-boxes for years en garde between steps and entrance.
City Staff pass by them at least twice a day.

Opposite is the obligatory monument to local war-dead. Actually the Plaza's core - deadzone. Of real interest in this could be: there are several small memorial plaques attached to the obelisk, below local/area names of those killed in 2 World Wars.
One for the Korean War (no names) and one for the Boer War (no names) in Southern Africa. The latter between the as usual bent on expanding colonies no-matter-how British and Boer settlers of Dutch descent, without a regular army and with indigenous slaves. Apartheid later institutionalized down there. The war is particularly brutal on/for both sides: 27.927 Boer civilians - mainly women and children - die in British-run "concentration camps" from diseases, malnutrition and exposure. Along with 20.000 indigenous Africans of the altogether 115.000 also forcibly kept in such camps. About 26.000 Boer POWs are shipped abroad - but not to colonial adjuncts Australia, New Zealand and Canada, all 3 having troops fighting for The Empire and the hell of it. Seemingly a few from Nelson, too - then at the height of its racist bluster.
City Staff pass by this show of Heritage gone sideways also at least twice a day.

 


While the Plaza could be a neutral space for rotating expressions of Nelson's finest in arts and constructive ideas now.

If we have the former - seeing that the quality of paintings (finally hung!) on the 2nd Floor desolation row couldn't possibly be as good as it gets in the Queen City. I mean - seriously!?

So the Star reporting that a sculpture by an indigenous artist has been placed in this Plaza - its name "Mother Bears Pray for Earth Healing" - comes as an uplifting surprise. The artist's name is Steinhauer (a German name, approximately and appropriately meaning "He Who Works With Stone").

I don't notice the sculpture: usually - like most - coming down the steps at their left and leaving on the same side, close to the struggling flower-boxes. Until one day remembering and looking around: to my surprise I see the Mother Bears on the other side, directly next to the steps, ducking below the - while generic in appearance loaded with intention - war-dead marker. Their colors blending into those of the ground, walls and memorial to make the Bears a sombre experience. Totally grey on grey in grey death.
Good enough not being good enough: a more supportive place would be on the grass, under trees, with space to be - and pray. Easy to be noticed there by all - particularly urgent as this is the first public-art piece in Nelson ever with artistic/spiritual depth in equal measure. 
The sculpture here seems to indicate positive movement.
A direction!

  

Then the Star announces: the piece has been moved to the Nelson & District Chamber of Commerce (NDCC) in Railtown. Bummer! After all not a movement of intent towards artistic expression with depth in the Plaza - but only on loan to City Hall after the Castlegar Sculpture Walk and now for sale at $100.000. Whether the NDCC pays this or how much or whatever the arrangement is: we don't know.
And the City Hall Plaza returns to bland.

Railtown
I decide to track these Bears to the NDCC through Railtown - post-plan and post-market now that that is closed for the coming 6 months. Always will be - no matter what kind of market is put there somewhere for how much. Half the price for half the year?

For now in Railtown - with what there is over time solidified in a workable pattern, even though not necessarily efficient today within a larger context - buildings and streets have been accepted as are.
But the many cars now driven, parked and sold everywhere there will multiply with every bit of new development: light-industrial - parking; shops - parking; condos - parking; parks - parking; market - parking. Plus driving to/from. So with traffic bound to consistently increase, "improving" Railway St. by slowing it down - for instance - seems counter-intuitive!
While the extent of development-plans is commendable: their photos of example-possibilities are of/in locations with more space or little context - not within jumbled confines similar to pokey Railtown. Sketches of how things could be look grown-up and spectacular - though Pleasantville idealized.

And that's just how the Hall St. thing - the thus far only manifestation of the Community Plan - is sold to the public: photos, sketches and talk of leisure-walks through green spaces with art and benches down to the lake, prompted in writing as a "pedestrian friendly corridor with civic spaces" - and a Design Review Committee, run by Kevin Cormack, City Manager, in charge. 
But here we are with the real-time redo! 
Considering that Hall ends-up in free-fall, without hitting (the) bottom yet: who at City Hall approves piece-by-piece work of significance in Railtown? Is it Council? This time? Seeing they are never even near the loop on Hall.

  

While it's actually doubtful that more weighty Railtown development takes place soon - on "brownfields" needing to be nursed back to health ("earth healing") big-time. Why would anyone invest here, unless the area offers a large-scale people-magnet, consistently drawing local/out-of-town crowds. Only this ultimately to provide incentive for investment. Which unconnected bits and pieces can't.

A radical rethink makes a cultural center (literally/figuratively) - with adequate parking directly attached - the core of Railtown, from which development "organically" radiates. They'll beat down the door to invest when given a reason with legs! A cultural center provides that, puts Nelson as a whole on the map in a new way!
This rethink must start at City Hall. With its Plaza out front as Step #1!

  

CPR Station
I see the Mother Bears right across from its entrance - more ducking than praying. Parking to their left - parking to their right. In fact - parking pretty much all around: the Bears' new home actually is a narrow island with parking-spaces chomped out of it on the CPR side. On top of that (them!) the 2 soon to arrive locomotives - just a bit to their right behind them - will totally dwarf, overpower the Mothers. With nowhere near enough space for them to breathe, connect with the sky and pray quietly choo-choo! Trapped!

Parking at the CPR Station is triple-tier and understandably so:
1.
Council-approved parking: Beware - for a select few only, 24/7! Death for transgressors!!
2.
Driver-claimed reserved parking: Homemade Reserved signs on sticks. Anyone who needs to park here - go for it!
3.
Free-range parking: Wherever anywhere around here, as has been done by many downtown day-workers for ages. 

Not by design - much of this post ends-up being about parking in Railtown. Bottomline: without space allowed for sufficient project-by-project parking as critical components - there can only be little development. Theoretically - putting all pieces of land for absolutely adequate parking in suggested projects together adds-up to a relatively huge chunk of Railtown real-estate. With consequences for development not realistically addressed in the Plan.

Example: It suggests that market-overflow (starting-off with overflow already!) can park at the Station. This is the worst kind of band-aid planning! Aside from the fact that there is little reliably available parking now, even with no market and few tourists.

    

With the Mother Bears - Pray(ing) for Earth Healing - hard-pressed to just make it themselves in this car park!

desktopperpaper.co
sculpturewalkcastlegar.com
androidcentral.com
colors.findthedata.com
kunzegallery.ca
spoonflower.com