Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith P.
It was hardly quick. WDC should be condemned for taking so long to do much of anything with such a great opportunity. And when they finally got off their duffs and did so, some of the choices were/are highly questionable.
The building that replaced the empty lot in the left foreground is outrageously bad to have been approved for that location. Despite getting a few awards at the time, Bishop's Landing is an architectural mishmash of questionable finishes and far less than what it could/should have been. The area on the east side of Lower Water is still mostly surface parking, with the one difference being that the trees they planted along there decades ago are now mostly mature which makes it look less like a wasteland, but which is more of a commentary on the WDC's addiction to parking revenue and their glacial pace of redevelopment than anything worthy of praise.
The building from which this shot was taken (Waterfront Place) is 30 years old. Those surface lots were there for 10 or 15 years prior to that. We are actually approaching half a century with no development on a large part of this site. Hardly praise-worthy.
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Not heaping praise, merely making a statement as to how the waterfront was changed completely from being a place of work and industry, as it had essentially been for a couple of centuries prior, to a barren wasteland having little function other than a place to temporarily park cars, all within a few decades. It's astounding to me, actually.
Where we are now is in transition to the waterfront being a place of leisure. We are not completely there yet, as alluded to, but we are on our way.
In the meantime, industrial parks were created to handle the type of business that once took place on the waterfront.
Frankly, my statement has nothing to do with your feelings about the WDC, or your discontent in general, just the complete changeover that I have been able to witness in my lifetime.