Toward More Livable Cities

By Wolf Von Eckardt

A 300-group coalition seeks ways to preserve human qualities

At first glance it looks like an ordinary, woman's handbag, just waiting to be lifted. But as thousands of pokers, prodders and pullers have discovered, it is not. It is made of bronze and, for the past three years, has been firmly bolted to its base, a bus-stop bench.

The bag is actually a sculpture by Realist Mags Harries. It is only one of a scattering of Harries' bronzes--a stuffed shopping bag abandoned by a phone booth, a half-eaten lunch left on a bollard--that grace Chelsea, Mass., a town attuned to a movement that hopes to make cities more livable. The driving force of this operation is a national organization called Partners for Livable Places.

Founded four years ago, Partners is a nonprofit coalition of about 300 groups, ranging from the American Council for the Arts to the National Trust for Historic Preservation. It is at once a collector and disseminator of information about the cityscape, a goader, cheerleader and teacher. With headquarters in a recycled town house in Washington, D.C., Partners publishes books, pamphlets and newsletters about urban planning, fields 1,500 queries a year from officials and citizens intent on sprucing up their cityscape, and sponsors workshops and conferences. Its current budget is $1.3 million. Roughly 30% of it comes from the National Endowment for the Arts, which gave birth to the organization, the rest from membership dues and donations from corporations and foundations. "Partners," says Ronald Lee Fleming, 40, head of the design firm involved in the Chelsea innovations, "is changing the spirit of city planning in America."

Partners' goal, which might be called the City Livable, is a reaction to the anonymity of international-style architecture and its obsession with wiping the city clean of natural and human messiness. It emphasizes a shift from monumental construction to humble restoration, from large parks to intimate plazas, from a universal style to local tradition. Says Robert McNulty, 41, president of Partners: "We wanted to pull together everyone who is concerned about the environment and to increase awareness of the need for art and design in the places where we live."

One of Partners' most successful targets was Paterson, N.J. (pop. 138,000), a blighted manufacturing city with 50 abandoned factories and mills. Most of the decaying structures were candidates for the bulldozer. In 1980, Partners got behind Mayor Lawrence Kramer's plans to renovate those historic buildings. To date, four of them have been handsomely restored for educational, commercial and tourist use, and additional renovative work is in the offing for four more. "To have top professionals come in and say 'Yes, this is the way to go' helped light some fuses around here," says Kramer.

In Savannah, Ga., efforts began in the mid-'70s to restore the city's Victorian district, tenanted mainly by the poor, elderly and black. It was slow going until McNulty and Partners went to work, championing the project, bringing in TV reporters and, at one point in 1978, even luring an approving First Lady Rosalynn Carter to town. During her visit, the Ford Foundation announced a loan of $750,000. The ballyhoo also convinced the black community that gentrification was not just for the gentry.

Partners has participated in similar energizing efforts elsewhere. In Cincinnati, the art-deco train terminal, headed for demolition, was turned into an elegant shopping center. In midtown St. Louis, Partners is promoting the restoration of two historic theaters for performing arts' use. This week in Richmond, local design students, prodded by Partners, will sketch ideas for improving the dowdy riverfront in hopes of stirring up local interest in salvaging the area.

In many U.S. cities, Partners has helped, directly or indirectly, to encourage this growing spirit of saving and restoring. Not only does the country sometimes seem caught in a sweet haze of nostalgia and playfulness, it also seems to be savoring its history on a small, even cozy scale. In Youngstown, Ohio, for example, in what appears to be one blue-collar community's search for identity, George Segal's life-size bronze of two steelworkers has been installed in a plaza; members of the building-trades union enhanced the artwork by erecting a real furnace as background.

In Seattle, citizens have been contributing $350 each to sponsor a series of eyecatching manhole covers that have been turned into relief maps for pedestrians. In Washington, D.C., the vacated Lansburgh's department store is beginning to serve as an arts center that is changing dingy Seventh Street into a kind of Soho. And in Chelsea, site of those lifelike bronze sculptures, large photo panels of local citizens have been put up near the renewed main street, producing the effect of a giant family album for public browsers.

It seems clear from all this diffuse activity that Americans are increasingly finding likable qualities in their old cities.

As bulldozers raged, we fell in love with buildings we had never noticed. We now look fondly on cobblestone pavements, miniparks, Victorian lampposts, benches, fountains, sidewalk cafes, pushcarts and street artists. Preservation of the past in planning for the future seems to dominate urban design.

"One of our major focuses," says Partners' McNulty, "is on what is doable with a small amount of funds. The aim is to change a street from a dull, dead place and bring people back downtown." Not everyone is in agreement with NcNulty.

Some critics call him a slick promoter and his ideas superficial hogwash. To this, Sandra Hillman, director of promotion and tourism for recently resurrected Baltimore, replies: "So what? The urban environment needs some high-pressure salesmanship. Partners and McNulty have managed to meld preservation with commercial revival. They've raised the sights of some myopic arts groups, and most important, they have turned on a lot of people." --By Wolf Von Eckardt.

Reported by Janice Simpson/New York, with other U.S. bureaus

With reporting by Janice Simpson, U.S. bureaus

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.