KCRag Forum

kboish wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 9:19 am While I like this project overall, the drone pictures reveal how sterile it is. I can barely tell if its a real picture or a rendering.

So this is a great example of selection bias.

You see a snapshot representing 30 seconds of a location and assume it represents the other 31.5 million seconds of the year.

The elevation changes of this area are just crazy!

flyingember wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 9:41 am

kboish wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 9:19 am While I like this project overall, the drone pictures reveal how sterile it is. I can barely tell if its a real picture or a rendering.

So this is a great example of selection bias.

You see a snapshot representing 30 seconds of a location and assume it represents the other 31.5 million seconds of the year.

I hope you are well Flyingember. Have a happy New Year.

kboish wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 9:19 am While I like this project overall, the drone pictures reveal how sterile it is. I can barely tell if its a real picture or a rendering.

It does appear sterile and not because it's a snapshot in time but because it's essentially plopped down as a self contained unit without much integration into the surrounding neighborhood. But the pre-existing environment didn't really offer much to work with: a cemetery, the bleak southern face of Hallmark, businesses or apartments on the east side of Gillham that themselves are isolated from the street. Hopefully, the empty block to the south doesn't stay a surface lot for eternity. It would be a nice place for a block of retail or a restaurant.

The drone photos also show how well the land at Union Cemetery would work as a park. It's simply wasteland as a cemetery. Unlike Penn Valley Park which is walled off by busy streets with no surrounding residential, Union Cemetery is surrounded by residential on almost all sides now and could become very useful as parkland for those residents. It would be great if they could simply transfer the graves from Union Hill to one of the totally unused and inaccessible corners of Penn Valley Park and open up Union Cemetery as a park.

kboish wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 9:19 am While I like this project overall, the drone pictures reveal how sterile it is. I can barely tell if its a real picture or a rendering.

Look across the street to the Hallmark building if you want to see an older version of sterile. lol.

Europeans use their urban cemeteries like parks. In some cases, they are tourist attractions.

Yes, as a Union Hill resident I can tell you that the cemetery is already very highly used as a park by joggers, dog walkers, people pushing strollers, even the occasional skateboarder or rollerskater. It is not wasted space at all and would be a travesty to remove the historic tombstones.

And the empty lots to the south may become a Gallerie phase 2. Hopefully sooner rather than later as that will improve connections between this area to things south. I imagine connections to the west will improve with future streetcar-spurred developments.

Highlander wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 3:19 pm
The drone photos also show how well the land at Union Cemetery would work as a park. It's simply wasteland as a cemetery. Unlike Penn Valley Park which is walled off by busy streets with no surrounding residential, Union Cemetery is surrounded by residential on almost all sides now and could become very useful as parkland for those residents. It would be great if they could simply transfer the graves from Union Hill to one of the totally unused and inaccessible corners of Penn Valley Park and open up Union Cemetery as a park.

This idea is horribly immoral.

flyingember wrote: ↑Sat Jan 02, 2021 10:14 pm

Highlander wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 3:19 pm
The drone photos also show how well the land at Union Cemetery would work as a park. It's simply wasteland as a cemetery. Unlike Penn Valley Park which is walled off by busy streets with no surrounding residential, Union Cemetery is surrounded by residential on almost all sides now and could become very useful as parkland for those residents. It would be great if they could simply transfer the graves from Union Hill to one of the totally unused and inaccessible corners of Penn Valley Park and open up Union Cemetery as a park.

This idea is horribly immoral.

Tell that to the natives. We literally built entire cities on top of their graves

mister816 wrote: ↑Sat Jan 02, 2021 10:42 pm

flyingember wrote: ↑Sat Jan 02, 2021 10:14 pm

Highlander wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 3:19 pm
The drone photos also show how well the land at Union Cemetery would work as a park. It's simply wasteland as a cemetery. Unlike Penn Valley Park which is walled off by busy streets with no surrounding residential, Union Cemetery is surrounded by residential on almost all sides now and could become very useful as parkland for those residents. It would be great if they could simply transfer the graves from Union Hill to one of the totally unused and inaccessible corners of Penn Valley Park and open up Union Cemetery as a park.

This idea is horribly immoral.

Tell that to the natives. We literally built entire cities on top of their graves

I’m not sure if you’re trying to use the moral norms of the past to validate bad actions today, but an argument of saying to ask people who would agree with not doing that is quite ironic.

flyingember wrote: ↑Sat Jan 02, 2021 10:14 pm

Highlander wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 3:19 pm
The drone photos also show how well the land at Union Cemetery would work as a park. It's simply wasteland as a cemetery. Unlike Penn Valley Park which is walled off by busy streets with no surrounding residential, Union Cemetery is surrounded by residential on almost all sides now and could become very useful as parkland for those residents. It would be great if they could simply transfer the graves from Union Hill to one of the totally unused and inaccessible corners of Penn Valley Park and open up Union Cemetery as a park.

This idea is horribly immoral.

It's not even remotely immoral. In time it will be a necessity. It already is throughout much of the world.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31837964

Highlander wrote: ↑Sun Jan 03, 2021 1:54 am

flyingember wrote: ↑Sat Jan 02, 2021 10:14 pm

Highlander wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 3:19 pm
The drone photos also show how well the land at Union Cemetery would work as a park. It's simply wasteland as a cemetery. Unlike Penn Valley Park which is walled off by busy streets with no surrounding residential, Union Cemetery is surrounded by residential on almost all sides now and could become very useful as parkland for those residents. It would be great if they could simply transfer the graves from Union Hill to one of the totally unused and inaccessible corners of Penn Valley Park and open up Union Cemetery as a park.

This idea is horribly immoral.

It's not even remotely immoral. In time it will be a necessity. It already is throughout much of the world.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-31837964

Nothing about that article says to get rid of cemeteries and even shows solutions to not do so.

The idea that we could have a shortage of land and the solution is to move burials into a different piece of land at great expense is a bad use of money at the very least.

kboish wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 9:19 am While I like this project overall, the drone pictures reveal how sterile it is. I can barely tell if its a real picture or a rendering.

I actually don't agree. At street-level, there's reflection in the materials (which you can't see in the drone shots) and the frontage on McGee is pretty good (also can't be seen in the photos).

My biggest issues with the place is why they left the garage exposed to the street when they had so much room to work with and could have put apartments fronting 27th to cover it up. Also, they could have created great views of Liberty Memorial/CC/Downtown if they had used the elevation changes effectively. Instead, they put the hallway and tiny windows on the west side of the building at 27th & Gillham and built the garage in the steepest section of the hill on the north side. Basically, every unit on the west and north sides in this development if high enough could have great views and they ignored the views completely.

Definitely did not take advantage of the topography to maximize views. Could have been more like a Mediterranean hillside village. Something like Safdie's Habitat in Montreal or even his Atriums on the Plaza. What little interesting geography there is in KC it is seldom taken advantage of. Usually fitting a square box in where ever. Thankfully we have the everlasting legacy of Kessler.

moderne wrote: ↑Tue Jan 05, 2021 5:06 pm Definitely did not take advantage of the topography to maximize views. Could have been more like a Mediterranean hillside village. Something like Safdie's Habitat in Montreal or even his Atriums on the Plaza. What little interesting geography there is in KC it is seldom taken advantage of. Usually fitting a square box in where ever. Thankfully we have the everlasting legacy of Kessler.

Amen!

Now that the newness has worn off, this project is pretty bleh. Hope it gets buried by future development

TheBigChuckbowski wrote: ↑Tue Jan 05, 2021 1:04 pm

kboish wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 9:19 am While I like this project overall, the drone pictures reveal how sterile it is. I can barely tell if its a real picture or a rendering.

I actually don't agree. At street-level, there's reflection in the materials (which you can't see in the drone shots) and the frontage on McGee is pretty good (also can't be seen in the photos).

My biggest issues with the place is why they left the garage exposed to the street when they had so much room to work with and could have put apartments fronting 27th to cover it up. Also, they could have created great views of Liberty Memorial/CC/Downtown if they had used the elevation changes effectively. Instead, they put the hallway and tiny windows on the west side of the building at 27th & Gillham and built the garage in the steepest section of the hill on the north side. Basically, every unit on the west and north sides in this development if high enough could have great views and they ignored the views completely.

I do think the McGee side is better and I quite like it. 27th street is pretty weak and a miss for me. The Gilham side is not my favorite, the reflections don't do it for me. Overall,i give it a passing grade though. Maybe the landscaping will help it in the spring. Otherwise it just kind of hulks over the street. I also think it will- i dunno- blend in more, if buildings get built to the south to help the building have more of a sense of place. Its on an island too much as it is and doesn't have the character from the gilham side to pull that off.

NW corner balcony suffered a pipe burst:

Critical_Mass wrote: ↑Sat Feb 20, 2021 5:52 pm NW corner balcony suffered a pipe burst:

not good

Luckily, I think the water leak was limited to exterior only.

Probably exterior fire sprinkler. Union Hill had same problem and they had to put a grate allowing room air into the chase that held the supply pipe.