photo credit: ABJ Seattle Glass Online
"A proposal to place a Dale Chihuly glass museum at financially-struggling Seattle Center has reopened an old debate about what, exactly, the center should be - a park with open spaces or a hub for the arts. The fact that it's a little of both right now was evident at a City Council public hearing held Thursday night at Seattle Center. During discussion about the glass museum one speaker referenced New York's Central Park and Lincoln Center, the former one of the world's premier public green spaces and the latter home to the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Ballet and the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
About 100 people attended the hearing, the second on the subject this week. A healthy percentage were there to support of a the proposed $15 million glass museum, which the Wright family, owners of the Space Needle, would like to replace the Center's Fun Forest. Supporters Thursday night said it would boost tourism and add to the arts opportunities, not just for visitors but for city residents, too.
Former City Councilmember Tina Podlodowski spoke for Chihuly.
"Dale supports green and open space. The vision of this project is to create an aesthetically pleasing, indoor-outdoor exhibit that adds color and vibrancy amongst green garden space while providing a point of entry to the visual arts that appeal to all ages," she said. "Seattle Center really isn't our Central Park, it's much more like Lincoln Center, a real gathering of a diverse set of arts organizations." Speakers at Thursday's City Council hearing. But another speaker, Belltown resident Ron Turner, complained that the glass museum proposal seems to contradict earlier, stated goals of increasing green space in Seattle Center.
"The plan was very specific for the Fun Forest site. It said that an asphalt jungle becomes an urban park with trees," Turner said. "It is an active open space that connects to the heart of the campus."
Turner said Belltown residents especially are hungry for green spaces, "where we have little open space...we have practically none. And this is a compliment, because we do use the Center, we do come to the Center, in some respects it is our green yard."
There were complaints that a public hearing earlier this week was stacked with glass museum supporters who arrived early, crowding out opponents. City Councilwoman Sally Bagshaw, who chairs the Parks and Seattle Center Committee, assured people at Thursday's hearing that they "would go til midnight" if necessary.
While it seemed the majority of people at Thursday's meeting were also in favor of the glass museum, council members have reported that they're hearing from more opponents than supporters.
Debates about how to use Seattle Center are nothing new.
During the ill-fated Seattle Monorail Project - the aborted plan to extend monorail service from West Seattle to Ballard - there were plans for tracks to cross the grounds of Seattle Center. Critics howled, saying the trains would disrupt the park-like setting of the Center.
The Fun Forest figured into the rebuttal of those arguments. The Center, monorail proponents said, was home to carnival rides, noisy games and was already the northern terminus of the existing, 1962 World's Fair-era monorail line. It was not an idyllic park, they said. Financial questions led to the dissolution of the Seattle Monorail Project in 2005.
In 2010, the debate about Seattle Center - home to much open green space, as well as places like the Experience Music Project, theaters and Seattle Opera - continues.
As Mayor Mike McGinn has pointed out, the current discussion takes place in a time when the Center is struggling to pay for its existing operations and looking for new sources of revenue. McGinn hasn't taken a position on the Chihuly musuem, other than to say it's proper for the Center to explore the option."
Grygiel, C. "Chihuly debate revives question: Is Center a park or arts hub?" Seattle Post-Intelligencer blog. http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/archives/200391.asp
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