Union Depot, Public Space Petri Dish, Still Waiting on Actual Trains

[Obama speaking at the SPUD in 2014.]

At this very moment, Vice-President Joe Biden is in downtown Saint Paul to tout the long-term effects of President Obama’s 2009 stimulus and infrastructure spending.

Fittingly, he’s appearing at the Saint Paul Union Depot, the 1920s train station that was remodeled as part of the stimulus package, receiving over $200M of Federal money for a thorough and gorgeous remodeling. The Union Depot, or SPUD, has been the site of a bunch of similar political events, from Obama’s 2014 appearance to the Saint Paul Riverfront Corporation dinner that same year. Like a lot of downtown Saint Paul, it makes for a picturesque, if misleading, urban backdrop.

Because there’s only one problem: the Saint Paul Union Depot is a train station without any trains.

To this day there’s one train in each direction that actually stops at the depot, and there’s little hope of that changing any time soon. When Obama came into office, he introduced an ambitions plan for national network of “high-speed rail” that would, it was hoped, finally start bringing the US passenger rail network into the 19th century.

Because trains make such easy scapegoats, building inter-city rail is one of the most difficult of the political Herculean feats. The election of Scott Walker in neighboring Wisconsin almost single-handedly derailed plans to bring more trains to Saint Paul, and he's still thriving despite falling flat on his face in the presidential race.

Other transit or rail projects that might connect to the SPUD aren't faring much better. Not much is gonna be changing anytime soon.

So despite all appearances, the SPUD isn’t much of a train station. In fact, I'd make you a bet that one of the most frequently used transit vehicles there is the Mystic Lake Casino bus, which is free, by the way, though I am told that visiting casinos might impose hidden costs. (I am half-kidding; Jefferson Lines’ buses actually make good use of the station, though they are also not trains.)

So if the SPUD isn’t a train station, what is it?

Here are a few answers, and a few ideas.

[Most of the time the $250M SPUD is really, really empty.]

1. A Public Space / Refuge from the Cold

[One of the few places Downtown open at to the public at 5am.]

It turns out, that the massive polished marble spaces of the SPUD have become something of a public space experiment lab, filled with art, a variety of kiosks, and a whole bunch of moveable furniture that are constantly moving around the massive rooms like Tetris blocks, arranging and re-arranging themselves into constellations that open up and close down the surrounding spaces like blooming flowers.

Here’s an example. The other night, just this week, I stopped by SPUD to use the bathroom. For some reason, there was as new spatial arrangement. Half the waiting room furniture had been moved into the “hallway” area between the entry way and the main waiting room. And just about every bench was occupied.

Meanwhile, the rest of the movable furniture, instead of being clustered together (as per usual) had been separated almost equidistantly through the cavernous space. And just like the hallway benches, almost every seat in the room was occupied. And almost every occupant was a person of color.

Apart from the fact that it's literally someone's job to re-arrange the deckchairs in this massive room, it was interesting to see the relationship between space, furniture, and social relationships play out before you. It offered quite a change from the usual empty room.

(It’s also worth noting that SPUD is one of those places that the “mallwalkers” seem to like. During the workday you get all kinds of office types emerging from the skyways to do laps around the massive marble floors of the waiting room.)

[Hallway benches occupied on a February night.]

[Furniture spread to maximize distance.]

2. A Public Art Gallery

[A lot of lite brite.]

The SPUD is full of public art, including the largest lite-brite display in the world, a cool “radio” step kiosk in the far corner, some awesome ceiling installations, and a kiosk tribute to the Avidors (who live upstairs).

There’s also a healthy dose of place-making in the SPUD, including the ever-popular acoustic ping pong table.

I think there’s room for more, most especially in the still-vacant outdoor “driveway” space between the SPUD steps and the light rail station. It’s sort of fascinating to watch these pieces attract or be ignored by different audiences at different times. This is what public art is supposed to look like.

[Ray King's "twin waves" sculpture.]

[Daily tous les jours' AIR installation.]

3. An Event Space
 
Lots of events happen here, and for the most part it works out just fine, though when the once-a-day Amtrak train actually does arrive (often belatedly) it can be amusing to watch the actual (sleepy, smelly) train passengers bewilderingly interact with a wedding or corporate shindig or what-have-you.

But anyway, it's a nice place for a banquet or a massive all-night art festival.

[Set up for a banquet.]

[Northern Spark festival.]

So that's OK, but it still seems like you're not getting all your "bang for the buck" with a quarter-billion. So what else could it be?

1. A River Connection

For one thing, it could be a connection to the riverfront. The city has ambitious plans to build a “river balcony” that would connect Lowertown and downtown to the river along an elevated walkway path that would enter seamlessly into the depot. Saint Paul has huge problems connecting to the river, which offers so much potential, thanks mostly to the (largely unnecessary) half-assed freeway running alongside the waterfront.

The Depot is the only building that bridges the train tracks, and if done carefully, could connect downtown to the river and activate the SPUD space at the same time. Optimistically, this could happen quite soon, if some funding is put together.

[Plans have changed since this model was built; the balcony would likely enter the side of the SPUD.]

2. A bike shop

Well over five years after it was supposed to happen, this is actually happening. See the recent article in the PiPress:

The Lowertown Bike Shop has signed a 10-year lease for both the Depot’s large basement space, as well a retail space on the Depot’s main floor. The shop likely will open at the new location in late April.

The Depot’s space is three times larger than the bike shop’s current space in the Jax Building across the street at 253 Fourth Street East.

“Being part of a transportation hub allows people to find us a lot easier,” said Crystal Sursely, operations manager for the non-profit shop. “We are beyond capacity with storage. It will let us carry a lot more and branch out into apparel, which is big.”

[Bike mechanics forced to pretend they're excited.]

3. An Actual Train Station

Maybe someday if we get the second daily Amtrak train, Scott Walker retires, funding for commuter rail plans materialize, or some other act of political divine intervention, this will be a real train station with more than one train a day.

At any rate, VP Biden, himself a big fan of Amtrak, might be stretching the truth a bit today when he talks about the successful transformation of the depot into a train station. I’m sure there were better ways to spend $240M on Twin Cities' transportation than fixing up this building.

But an earmark is an earmark, and it’s an amazing building, a priceless legacy that will anchor Saint Paul’s "railroad future" (whatever that means) for generations. The hard work is still ahead of us, but fixing up and rehabbing the SPUD was never going to get any cheaper, and these days it’s interesting to watch it evolve into a vital downtown public space.

In the mean time, the juxtaposition of refuge for the city's poorest people, transit station, restaurant, exercise room for office workers, and stage for political events makes for some fascinating public space people watching.  Don't forget to try the ping pong.

[I don't follow instructions well.]

[Empty benches, polished floor.]

[Train station, shmainstation. This is a great ping-pong table.]

TC SIdewalks Live!: Discuss Public Art and Private Space on Hennepin Avenue Tomorrow

[Alice in Wonderland sidewalk.]

If you're around downtown Minneapolis tomorrow over the lunch hour, come on down to the Hennepin Avenue Parklot. I'll be joining Joan Vorderbruggen, one of my favorite public artists, to talk about how to create public art using private space.

Date: Tomorrow August 1st
Time: Noon
Place: Hennepin Avenue between 9th and 10th


Joan has long been interested in shop window design, and over the past few years begun combining that with an interest in temporary and pop-up art installations. She was one of the people working on activating Block E (before the remodel), and is currently working on improving some of the marginal (parking lot) spaces along Hennepin Avenue in downtown Minneapolis. I did an interview with her for the streets.mn podcast, and recently wrote about her for a piece at Minnpost.

We'll be chatting about public art, temporary urbanism, and the challenges of combining private and public interests while sitting in one of her brand new projects, the Parklot! See you there.

Here's the Facebook page:

Join us for the second installment of our Lunchtime Parklot Speaker Series with Cultural District Arts Coordinator Joan Vorderbruggen. Joan will discuss the basic steps involved implementing artists work in vacant commercial storefronts, as well as general insights in regards to creating
public art in privately owned commercial space. 

Topolo Tacos will be parked in the Parklot and open for service starting at 11am. Joan will start her talk at noon.

Since creating Artists in Storefronts in 2012, Joan has implemented well over 200 visual displays of MN based creatives work in vacant commercial storefronts, as well as produced and supported 75 live performances in alternative space, six large scale murals, and dozens of community engaging walking and biking tours and activities. She now serves as Cultural District Arts Coordinator for Hennepin Theatre Trust activating the downtown Cultural District with public art and activity. With Made Here, nearly 40 window showcases are currently on display over 15 city blocks downtown.

Two (More) Open Streets Lessons from Saint Paul

[Painting a mural on the long-dormant "Saint Paul Meats" building.]

A few years ago, I wrote about Minneapolis' first ever Open Streets event. (I guess Saint Paul is about three years behind its twin, though this seems a bit optimistic...) And a few weeks ago, those of us in capitol city celebrated our first ever Open Streets event!

In case you haven't heard Open Streets (a.k.a. "sunday streets" or cyclovia) is an interesting active living and urban design event that comes out of South America, and first arrived in the Twin Cities a few years ago along Lyndale Avenue in Minneapolis. I'd like to report that Saint Paul's debut effort was a resounding success, but (despite the organizer's proclamations) I can' quite bring myself to do so.

Rather, I think Saint Paul's Open Streets was a qualified good start. Sunday the 15th was a moderately lovely day. It was a bit cloudy, and what we in Minnesota might generously call" brisk." But eventually the sun came out, and it was lovely weather. Maybe it was the grey skies, but turnout was lower than I was hoping.

Maybe one of the reasons is that University Avenue, the site of the Open Streets event, presented a few challenges for the format. First, when cars are removed, you really begin to realize how barren, and dehumanizing the street architecture actually is. Vacant buildings and parking lots are everywhere. Very few doors, houses, or shops meet the sidewalk. Those that do seem devoid of people. Outside of a car, Saint PAul often feels like a ghost town, and University Avenue is no exception. (Inside of a car, it's too dark to see.)

[Musicians playing on the concrete LRT barrier.]

The second challenge of the street was the light rail itself. Construction for the train involves large concrete barriers that divide the road in half, length-wise, and make it difficult or impossible to cross the street. Compared to other Open Streets events that I've attended, the LRT concrete put a damper on the potential of the street to be transformed into a people-centered place. Other than a few intersections, the two sides of the street feel disconnected these days.

That said, the event was a success in my opinion. Saint Paul's first stab at the format illustrated some of the challenges faced by non-motorized transportation movement, particularly around the way that cars are perceived differently along race and class lines. And for that reason, it was a good start at trying to re-frame how our streets are designed and used in Saint Paul.

Two lessons in particular jumped out at me...



Open Streets Means Different Things to Different People

[Young hip-hop artists performing.]

In my research on bicycling and walking, it's very interesting to see how bicycling and walking are perceived differently across different race and class divides. From the dominant upper-middle class White perspective, biking and walking is perceived as a statement about fitness or environmentalism, a choice people are making to express their values. But as any regular bus rider knows, for communities of color, non-motorized transportation is a necessity. Transit, biking, and walking are often something you need to do to get around, because you need to. Being "liberated" from cars means something different if you've never really had one in the first place.

It's also worth mentioning that people advocating for non-motorized transportation can sometimes overlook cultural differences in how public spaces are used in everyday life. For example, think about the different attitudes toward front- and back-yards, towards music and expression, and towards clothing and dress that are always at work within social situations. Assuming that people have the same cultural and social framework for perceiving something like a "public meeting" is a mistake too often made within planning and community engagement.

That said, just like the last two Lowry Avenue Open Streets events in North Minneapolis, the full diversity of Saint Paul's University Avenue was on display on Sunday. There were different stages where the area's main cultural groups performed, including a stage devoted to hip-hop (pretty sure I heard YN Rich Kids performing their "my bike" song), one that featured predominantly White artists, and another one filled by Asian-American musicians. Traveling up and down the full two-mile stretch of the street, you could really hear, smell, and see the diversity of Saint Paul. It's something that should make us proud.

And it turns out there can be a lot of common ground between different parts of our community when it comes to streets. Everyone wants to feel safe crossing the street. Everyone wants to have places for their children to walk and ride bikes without being threatened by fast-moving cars. At its best, Open Streets builds bridges between often disparate groups, bringing them together around improving safety and quality of life along the streets that we all share.

Any critiques of the Open Streets event need to keep this diversity in mind. A common refrain I heard from some of the planners and advocates was that the Open Streets "needed more events," that the street felt too empty. I agree to an extent, but I worry that more fully "programming" the space might limit the inherent creativity of the different parts of the neighborhood. As I've written before, one of the brilliant things about the Open Streets format is that it doesn't tell people what to do, how to use the space. It simply makes it available, and then let's the inherent generative potential of people flourish. While this event felt a bit sparse at times, I'm quite hopefully that next time Saint Paul puts on an Open Streets event, more people will take to the streets in their own ways, and even more bottom-up activities might emerge.   

[A young man trying unsuccessfully to get people to stop in at 88 Oriental Foods, a grocery store.]

Some Small Businesses "Got It"; Most Didn't

This is connected to the first point. In the weeks and days leading up to the Open Streets event, I'd had a few discussions with leaders of the business community and arts organizations along the avenue. Despite the outreach and preparation work done, many people along University Avenue didn't seem to understand exactly what kind of event this was. (It's only natural that there would be confusion, as this kind of event IS complicated and might not easily translate across cultures.)

That said, one thing that was on full display was the wide range of approach to marketing the small businesses along the street. For example, the dozens of Asian-American restaurants along University Avenue are one of Saint Paul's best features. I haven't counted them all, but I'd bet you can buy a bowl of pho at more than a dozen different unique places along the street. But of all of these businesses, only a few seemed to clearly understand the nature of the event, and set out food along the street. Homi Mexican Restaurant was selling lots of roasted corn, Johnny Baby's rib sandwiches were doing a brisk business, and Lao Thai's food table was crowded all day long.

But meanwhile, outside of that handful of shops, most places had little to nothing out on the street. There were whole blocks with no displays, no tables, no smells, no samples. It was a real missed opportunity to connect the often-isolated car-centered University Avenue shops with each other.

In a way, all the open space of the first Open Streets is OK with me. It means that there's a lot of opportunity for the many people who live and work along University Avenue (or any future Open Street) to claim their social and physical spaces, and re-make them however they like. I'd like to see future Open Streets events be more aggressive about getting people outside, out into the public spaces. Hopefully, Saint Paul's first attempt is just the beginning. Down the road, I'm excited about the possibilities that come with freeing our streets from cars for a day.

[A young man (fake moustache) handing out free fried rice samples in front of a Thai Restaurant.]

[The hopping food table in front of Lao Thai, the best along the whole street IMO.]

[Delicious rib cookery at Johnny Baby's.]

WANTED: Moveable Chairs on a Saint Paul Jail

[The old Ramsey County jail as seen from the Wabasha Bridge.]

One of the more interesting spots you'll find in downtown Saint Paul is right at the top of the Wabasha Freedom Bridge, along the river bluff just across the street from City Hall.

The sidewalk opens up in odd ways right to form three red brick plazas along the riverfront. There's some odd infrastructure, like a loading dock, a doorway, and the top of an elevator. And most strikingly, there are lovely views of the river valley and Saint Paul's West Side.

But the strangest thing about the space is that you're standing on the rooftop of an old jail. Beneath your feet, abandoned jail cells are literally embedded into the face of the cliff. The building is the old Ramsey County jail, where inmates had amazing views of the Mississippi River. The other day, I was chatting with a long-time Saint Paul resident about the old jail, and he told me a story. Back in the 80s, inmates girlfriends would sometimes stand on the edge of the Wabasha Street bridge and flash their incarcerated boyfriends across the way. The whole jail would cheer, noses pressed against the glass.

Today, while the plaza provides amazing views of the river valley, it remains strangely lifeless. It's a shame made more poignant every week or so, when food trucks park here along Kellogg Boulevard. Somehow, despite having a plaza right next to a river, and despite having dozens of people with food in their hands, it doesn't seem to get much use. The main problem? There's nowhere to sit. There's no shade. There are no tables... There is little more than a solitary metal sculpture on a promontory surrounded by a few planters.

Oh, and flags. Lots of American flags.

[Part of the jailtop plaza.]

[One of the alienating plazas; very gulag-y.]

William Whyte to the Rescue

[A guy sitting and eating on a rusty staircase.]

William Whyte is the founder of placemaking. He was a famous urban writer and designer who became famous for thinking about plazas in downtown New York City. He devoted many years to describing how to make them useful and popular through the group that he started, the Project for Public Spaces.

(Sidenote: he also thought downtown Saint Paul sucked.)

The way that Whyte saw it, plazas are pretty simple. People enjoy watching other people. People like sitting down, sometimes in the shade. People like food and water. It's not rocket science.

But here's one lesson that seems to be lost on many folks today. People like to have some control over their street furniture. Whyte was particularly fond of moveable chairs. Here's the clip from his wonderful documentary, the Social Life of Small Urban Spaces, where he describes moveable chairs:






(You should watch the whole thing later sometime. There's even brief footage of the IDS center from the early 80s.)

The famous place for Whyte's moveable furniture experiment is Bryant Park in New York City. It's a medium sized grassy park right next to the main downtown library. The city added lovely green tables and chairs, all completely moveable, and it's become one the nicest place in Midtown. Today, moveable chairs are all over Manhattan, right in the middle of Broadway.

[Whyte's famous moveable chairs in Bryant Park.]

[Moveable tables and chairs in Times Square.]

Just Do It

[Three lonely and unmoveable tables.]

The concern that you always hear about anything moveable is that it might be stolen or vandalized. But that's a viscous cycle. The more you turn your downtown into "defensible space" immune to tampering, the more you make it cold, inflexible, and alienating.

(For example, one of the jailtop plazas has fixed tables that are most often empty.)

Similarly, to provide security is often more expensive than the initial cost of the chairs and tables in the first place. The total budget for some movable tables and chairs would be less than the annual maintenance of a single stoplight.

The other reaction I've gotten about improving Saint Paul's unused plazas is that the space is going to be redeveloped and greatly improved in the future. To that I say, how long from now? How many years will it sit comatose while we wait for a magic developer to improve our sidewalks?

At a certain point, it just makes sense to trust people to be decent citizens, to trust that you'll have enough "eyes on the street" to maintain a minimum of civic life. The gesture alone is worth making.

Have a seat, Saint Paul. You deserve it.

[Lots of people standing around with food truck food.]

[A guy eating off a ledge; two women perched somewhat awkwardly.]

[Some friends of mine brought chairs to the plaza the other day, and lo and behold, people sat in them.]

Today on Streets.mn: The Paradox of the Placemaking Consultant

[Ironically, R. Florida's place-based quiz adopts a homogenizing, spatial perspective.]

I have a new post at Streets.mn today about my puzzlement during the recent Great River Gathering dinner. The keynote speaker was Katherine Loflin, one of the leading consultants on placemaking in the US. Anyway, it was all a bit odd to hear her describe the importance of not listening to national experts, and I tried to describe it here. To wit:

But as the banquet rolled on, Loflin’s words began washing over me like the roller squeegees at the gas station car wash. “Place optimization.” “Making the case for place.” “Reading the economic development playbook…” When she wrapped up her talk by saying that “you should be exactly who you are, but you should be the best who you are you can be,” every airport bookstore I’ve ever seen flashed before my eyes. It seemed that my world had become a corny self-help cliché, and there was no escape.

That night, I encountered the paradox of the placemaking expert, the nonsensical way in which the rejection of standardized approaches to urban design had generated an entire industry based on that rejection.  The idea that each urban environment is made meaningful by those who use it every day has become so trendy that we’ve reached to the point where we’ve begun flying in national experts to tell us to stop flying in national experts. It’s a total paradox, and placemaking has begun to seem rather silly.

Placemaking has become a bit of a buzzword, but like many such overused concepts, it has a lot of merit to it. It'd be nice if we could think through "placemaking" as an idea without reducing it to a business management cliché.