BRACKENRIDGE PARK VITAL TO CONTINUING ’09 CULTURAL EXPANSION
Backers of Brackenridge Park and city leaders see the 343-acre public park not only as worthy of preservation but vital to the continued cultural expansion happening on the Broadway corridor. The Brackenridge Park Conservancy held a fundraiser, Spirit of Brackenridge Park, in the park on May 6. The event raised funds for the nonprofit, which acts as a steward and advocate for the park and to raise visibility for new opportunities.
The event enabled attendees to hop aboard the San Antonio Zoo Eagle train, by which they briefly toured the park. Passengers made brief stops to enjoy light bites and beverages provided by event sponsors. Patrons enjoyed more food and drinks and live music at the park’s Koehler Pavilion beneath cypress trees along the San Antonio River’s banks as day gave way to night.
Lynn Bobbitt, conservancy executive director, said the event offered a chance for many people to get reacquainted with Brackenridge Park, a spacious natural oasis surrounded by urbanization. “We advocate for the open space, the green space, that is available to all of us to enjoy,” Bobbitt said. She noted cultural institutions surrounding the park, such as the Witte Museum, San Antonio Botanical Garden and San Antonio Zoo, that are growing and making improvements for the future. “What we have to do now is work on enhancing the infrastructure of the park so that it’s here for many more years,” Bobbitt said. She cited the park’s draft master plan, which was revealed to the public earlier this spring.
A group of architects, engineers and other consultants, led by local landscape architect James Gray Jr., is working on the city-commissioned plan. The draft document proposes $150 million worth of redevelopment and upgrades around the park, including replacing a surface parking lot with a 10-acre “grand lawn,” closing roads that weave through the park, and an electric tram system to transport park visitors. Bobbitt said it would be ideal to preserve and redevelop the Spanish colonial-era acequia and dam and the late 19th-century pump house, perhaps with help from the Witte. “We don’t have to reinvent the wheel,” she said. “The Witte has so many wonderful educational programs. We could partner with them to bring more families in so they can learn about the civilizations that were here before the park.”
Robert Hammond, 1988 Alamo Heights High School alum, was a guest of honor at the event. He and District 2 City Councilman Alan Warrick said the city has a chance to ensure the park broadens its appeal to newcomers and to native residents. Hammond, son of Alamo Heights residents Pat and Hall Hammond, spent more than a decade as co-founder and executive director of Friends of the High Line (FHL) in New York City. The organization is a nonprofit that helped to save and convert an abandoned elevated railway on Manhattan’s West Side into an internationally celebrated urban park.
Hammond said San Antonians should be willing and able to support the improvement of Brackenridge Park to benefit current and future generations. “There’s over 300 acres of space within a 10-minute drive from downtown. I think sometimes San Antonio is too insecure about what it has to do,” said Hammond.
Warrick added, “All of us have memories of the park, but our history goes back hundreds of years. It’s that combination of the recent past, the distant past and the current that can make this an incredible park. I do see a chance to do those things in the urban core, but I think we can take another look at Brackenridge Park and our near east, near west and near south neighbors and really see what makes up downtown San Antonio and what is downtown for San Antonians.” He also said it’s important to focus on what drives tourists and locals to this concentration of cultural/recreational destinations in and around the park.
By Edmond Ortiz
