HIGH ON CHARLESTON: Slack Plaza Woes
Click to enlarge. Photo by Walker DeVille
Oh my. In some mad urban renewal frenzy (or was it a caffeine-rush morning when it just seemed the thing to do?), the city of Charleston all of sudden a few weeks ago slaughtered all the trees in that triangular plot to the right on Slack Plaza. Couple that with the city’s still-contentious creation of the ferocious metal strips (a k a ‘loafer rails’) lining the concrete planters throughout the area, meant to discourage intimidating bums and aggressive louts harassing people, and this plaza now has all the charm of an abandoned lot in outer Detroit.
I will spot the city some leeway in trying to figure out the aggressive lout issue — always a nettlesome urban issue, especially with police protection spread thing. But the tree decimation seemed ill-conceived at best. Still, stripping Slack Plaza down to its bare essentials does present the opportunity to rethink the entire space. I’ve always had another problem with this plot — the way the fountains near the Transit Mall force you to dodge one way and then another. The feng shui of the entire plaza is a mess.Why not rethink the whole space, rip out the fountain and re-do Slack Plaza from the get-go.
May 30th, 2007 at 11:09 am
[…] Charleston Gazette staff writer Jim Balow wrote an excellent historical look back at the intial hopes for Slack Plaza (above) in the Monday paper, the disappointments over the space through the years and its current denuded state. Read the piece, it’s worth it — and is a good example of the kind of important civic discussions that can have such an impact upon the way a downtown looks and feels. I continue to feel the plaza needs re-invention from the get-go. Aside from the important questions of safety and comfort in the plaza itself, raised by the Mayor, the layout forces you into an annoying zig-zag, obstacle-running circuit as you move from downtown to the mall, the two foci of life in downtown Charleston. […]