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Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 2:19 pm
by pash
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Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 2:26 pm
by Highlander
pash wrote:If you were going to move Union Cemetery, you wouldn't move it to a Penn Valley Park.
Why not? Much of the park is unused. Union Cemetery - which is in a much better location to be an urban park than PVP would at least remain central and urban at an under-used PVP location (like where the Scout statue sits now). I'm suggesting essentially a land swap. The Scout could even stay (provided it is deemed PC enough in the future). National Parks and the Forest Service do land swaps from time to time acquire private property inside the park/forest for land not deemed appropriate to fulfill their mission.
Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 2:50 pm
by pash
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Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 3:14 pm
by Highlander
pash wrote:Because there's zero reason to move a cemetery from one desirable location in the center of the city to another desirable location in the center of the city. Nobody does that. When you move a cemetery, you move it somewhere out of the way.
If you want to maintain a sense of the historical, build a nice memorial and save the 27 acres in the park for some more useful purpose than holding what's left of a lot of remains that have been in the ground for more than a century. Sure, an old cemetery would be more interesting and useful than most of the nothingness in Penn Valley Park today, but that's no good reason to turn it into one; if we're going to re-purpose 27 acres of Penn Valley Park, surely we can find something better to do with the space than filling it up with rotting corpses and eroding tombstones.
I'd be more than OK with just a memorial but the caretakers of the cemetery and probably much of the public would probably object to that - hence the land swap. Union Cemetery, at least in my opinion, offers a significantly better location for an urban park than the southwest part of PVP so I would not call the two parcels of land equals in terms of value as an urban park. We've all had various degrees of consternation over the issues confronting the south end of PVP and to me this seems to be a solution that makes some sense as the land occupied by Union Cemetery scores high in all the categories that PVP fails at.
Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Sat Aug 19, 2017 5:57 pm
by pash
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Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 7:53 pm
by flyingember
The hard part with changing the cemetery is it's one of the few pre-civil war parts of the urban landscape that hasn't dramatically changed.
If anything, using the space for respectful uses like jogging is about all that should be considered
Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Sun Aug 20, 2017 8:52 pm
by Highlander
flyingember wrote:The hard part with changing the cemetery is it's one of the few pre-civil war parts of the urban landscape that hasn't dramatically changed.
If anything, using the space for respectful uses like jogging is about all that should be considered
True. That's why I suggested the land swap with south Penn Valley Park as that part of the park is rarely visited. I think there would be a lot of pushback from the public if the cemetery was simply moved to Grain Valley or some other bucolic location. I realize the historical significance but right now, it's historical dead space (the pun wasn't intended). It would be OK if the space was used by the living but it is not and it occupies some of the best real estate in the city presently and it would be a fantastic location for a park. I know it is presently public land but who hangs out in a cemetery? It's not a place for a picnic lunch or to take the kids to play. Maybe in Europe but Americans are kind of skittish about things like that.
Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 8:55 am
by chingon
Highlander wrote: Maybe in Europe but Americans are kind of skittish about things like that.
American ghosts are a lot more violent than European ghosts.
Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 9:30 am
by beautyfromashes
Can we stop?! We aren't going to move thousands of dead people from their resting places...and we shouldn't.
Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Mon Aug 21, 2017 10:45 am
by pash
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Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 12:27 am
by aknowledgeableperson
The city of Boston has at least three cemeteries in the heart of the city and I would imagine that land has more value tied to it than Union Cemetery.
Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 9:08 am
by pash
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Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 11:46 am
by flyingember
aknowledgeableperson wrote:The city of Boston has at least three cemeteries in the heart of the city and I would imagine that land has more value tied to it than Union Cemetery.
To be fair about Boston, their cemeteries are for tourism too.
Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 2:24 pm
by aknowledgeableperson
flyingember wrote:aknowledgeableperson wrote:The city of Boston has at least three cemeteries in the heart of the city and I would imagine that land has more value tied to it than Union Cemetery.
To be fair about Boston, their cemeteries are for tourism too.
To a certain degree so is Union Cemetary.
Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Tue Aug 22, 2017 4:16 pm
by flyingember
aknowledgeableperson wrote:flyingember wrote:aknowledgeableperson wrote:The city of Boston has at least three cemeteries in the heart of the city and I would imagine that land has more value tied to it than Union Cemetery.
To be fair about Boston, their cemeteries are for tourism too.
To a certain degree so is Union Cemetary.
While it's not an unfair statement, it's the difference between The Nelson and my private art collection
Boston cemetaries are on national park maps
https://www.nps.gov/bost/planyourvisit/ ... STmap4.pdf
Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Sun Sep 10, 2017 11:24 pm
by beautyfromashes
Has there been any discussion about expanding the WWI Museum footprint? It's been several years since the last remodel and I'd love to see a larger building that could hold more aircraft and even ships (The Chicago Science and Industry Museum has a submarine). There is plenty of space in the park and it might be a better way to connect more closely with Union Station.
Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2017 10:28 am
by scooterj
moderne wrote:The only thing Union Cemetery needs to be a functioning park is gates on all sides open during daylight hours. People in the neighborhoods around it(me) could use it as a pleasant shortcut to Crown Center or Main St or PV Park.
This. As one who takes leisurely walks through it every week, I would love for there to be more than just the one access point. It seems like it would be pretty easy to add a pedestrian-only gate near 29th & Oak and another near the bend in the dead-end portion of Warwick Tfwy.
Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2017 2:39 pm
by loftguy
beautyfromashes wrote:Has there been any discussion about expanding the WWI Museum footprint? It's been several years since the last remodel and I'd love to see a larger building that could hold more aircraft and even ships (The Chicago Science and Industry Museum has a submarine). There is plenty of space in the park and it might be a better way to connect more closely with Union Station.
While we're at it, could we squeeze in the Battle of Verdun?
Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2017 2:58 pm
by pash
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Re: OFFICIAL: Penn Valley Park (Ideas+redeveloment)
Posted: Mon Sep 11, 2017 4:53 pm
by mean
We love our dear leader Sly.