The urban parking lot is a little black hole in the dense fabric of the city. I pass them wearily as I walk from block to block and I imagine which Smart Park will stop selling its soul for $12 a day and grow up into a building of some consequence. Preferably at least three storys. Maybe nine. Or which derelict one story office building with its smashed-in windows and peeling beige paint will be the next to go, ceasing to need its private surface parking lot which can only accommodate the cars which serve paying customers for a few hours a day.
While the city is overwhelmingly growing through density, small asphalt rectangles of a violating lifestyle are content to hide in the shadows of increasingly taller neighbors. During the day they support an influx of cars that wait for their humans to return, making oil puddles that shimmer in the sun. At night...um...nothing happens. We need to hide these parking lots underground and under buildings.
I suppose it is unscientific or nonliterary to say they are just plain ugly. They are just plain ugly. The Hive Modern Furniture store (above center) which is housed in a one story green box surrounded by a parking lot on all sides is bound to be replaced by denser development sooner or later, as it is situated on the North Park Blocks in the Pearl. What is outside does not resonate with what is inside. Modern furniture is about the modern city and modern living...not the parking lot. Perhaps Hive will soon occupy a nice ground floor retail space of a mixed-use building, maybe on this very site. Perhaps one with an underground parking lot to bury the vestige of Henry Ford, and with several welcoming residential floors above for people to actually live in with their modern furniture.
Boo to the surface parking lot. You are ugly.
While the city is overwhelmingly growing through density, small asphalt rectangles of a violating lifestyle are content to hide in the shadows of increasingly taller neighbors. During the day they support an influx of cars that wait for their humans to return, making oil puddles that shimmer in the sun. At night...um...nothing happens. We need to hide these parking lots underground and under buildings.
I suppose it is unscientific or nonliterary to say they are just plain ugly. They are just plain ugly. The Hive Modern Furniture store (above center) which is housed in a one story green box surrounded by a parking lot on all sides is bound to be replaced by denser development sooner or later, as it is situated on the North Park Blocks in the Pearl. What is outside does not resonate with what is inside. Modern furniture is about the modern city and modern living...not the parking lot. Perhaps Hive will soon occupy a nice ground floor retail space of a mixed-use building, maybe on this very site. Perhaps one with an underground parking lot to bury the vestige of Henry Ford, and with several welcoming residential floors above for people to actually live in with their modern furniture.
Boo to the surface parking lot. You are ugly.
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