To start, a mix of good, bad, and ugly: Between Bombadill's coffee shop, and the downtown branch of the library, is that cute little mini-park, that is a bright spot with it's new seating and revamped water fountain-- That's the good, a nice downtown improvement in an area that needs all the help it can get. The Bad? Either do to the severe cold of the recent weather, or an act of vandalism, the nicely reworked fountain has had several dozen decorative mini-tiles break loose or fall off from the top of the fountain surround. I've my suspicions that lean toward said tiles being 'helped' towards 'falling off'. The Ugly? Whomever did such.

Last winter, when they were working on the park, my wife and I noticed that they didn't bother to cover the fountain. Thus, rain got in, froze, and I'm actually surprised the entire bowl didn't crack.

As for the new park itself, I'm not a huge fan, as it is clearly something that looked good in an artist's rendition, but lacks any real utility. A good example is the little storytelling area, with books for seats- if you actually sit on one you'll find it completely uncomfortable, and awkwardly close to your neighbor (and yes, even if you're child-sized).

I'm sure it looked great on paper, though.

The park was a very big, expensive project, and I doubt they budgeted funds for upkeep of serious problems like the fountain cracking.

My two cents, is that I would have rather seen some informal ornamental plantings, maybe improved the sidewalk, and kept the fountain where it was; then they could have spent the money on more accessions (books, videos, etc) for the library.

Hmmm, well, no one could ever accuse me of being half-full, but I love the mini-park. I can take my tea out to a bench or chess table. I'm looking forward to mah-jongg in the spring at one of those tables--I'm sure it's the perfect size. I adore the native ornamental plantings--dogwood, american cranberry and nodding wild onion. AND who can balk at the fantastic monument to Harriet Tubman?! I stand by its beauty. However, I noticed this evening that more tiles are coming up from the "river" following the thaw. Who is responsible to maintain the park? City? Library?

I told my wife that I had made some disparaging comments about the courtyard, and she sarcastically said "Wow, way to stick it to THE MAN," so perhaps I was a bit more negative than I needed to be.

Moving the fountain is the big thing, to me. It's been there in the courtyard for many years, and relocating it on the sidewalk has 1) exposed it to passing foot and bike traffic more, and 2) the shock of relocating it is probably what weakened the grout in the first place- freezing and thawing just finished the job. My wife has a great deal of experience in tile, and I can assure you that none of this should happen if it's properly constructed.

As I said above, it all looks pretty enough, but some of the features like the book seats aren't nearly as functional as they could be for the price I'd bet they paid.

Just to further put my foot in my mouth, I'll close with a few thoughts on the Harriet Tubman statue Lisele brought up.

1) As far as I know, she had no actual connection to Ypsilanti.

2) This is not a unique work of art, but rather a statue that the (non-local) artist/company has produced repeatedly elsewhere.

3) I hate, hate, hate the modern revisionist tendency to make it seem like every pre-1865 basement north of the mason dixon line was filled with runaway slaves. Like most other northern cities, Ypsilanti was a mixed bag of sentiments during the 19th century, with racist superiority being the prevailing attitude, and it's disingenous to make it seem otherwise.

5) In connection to point #2, were any local artists used for the design of ANY part of this courtyard? I don't know, but I suspect they were not.

Finally, in the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I never go to bombadil's myself- so I appreciate that if one did frequent that venue, then the courtyard might have added benefits that I'm not taking into account.

Just as a slight clarification of my comments above regarding the fountain's history, I looked into it and the precise details are as follows-

The fountain itself IS an old donation, made by a Patsy Chandler who (starting in 1956) held an annual tea at the library to raise funds for charities, and also the fountain itself. As I said above, it was originally set deeper in the courtyard, but what I didn't realize is that it originally was just concrete- without any ornamentation.

When the library revamped the courtyard, that's when the glass tiles were applied to both the ground and the fountain itself.

So, this is both good and bad- good because we're not talking about the original decoration of a downtown landmark being damaged, but bad because 1) the damage is still an embarassment to the community and 2) particularly so since these tiles were only applied a couple years ago, and thus this weathering is absolutely unacceptable.

My next question, is who the library hired to apply these tiles, and whether they will be making amends for what was apparently shoddy workmanship.

Finally, I thought I should point out that the library's contact page offers many different avenues to voice your opinions.

***Sigh***

Taking Brett's advice from above, I contacted the library as well. No less a person than the library director herself (Jill Morey) answered my email about the problems with the tiles on the fountain and the "river of life" as well. It appears that weather is mostly to blame, as most of us have probably guessed, but also unfortunately, so are vandals -- Insofar as the fountain itself is concerned. She tells me (in her email) that the contractor will do something about the loosening tiles problem later this spring when the weather warms some more-- As to the fountain: The security cameras have been re-situated to cover/view the fountain and record future (hopefully not) potential acts of vandalism-- Sure cameras just come into play "after the fact" in the course of a crime-- But what else can be done? Overall, I'm glad that the contractor is seemingly being held to account for the questionable installation, and with luck come next spring nothing more need be said about this topic. It's getting nice outside, Ypsi! Enjoy.

hey wildchild,

no, as a matter of fact, i had not heard about that, but after looking into i found some essays spelling out the exact point you refer to, and found it very interesting.

in the interest of full disclosure, although i never personally spread the rumor, i worked at a museum whose ugrr programming included myriad references to the quilt code, so it is certainly not just the ypsi hissy docents who are misinformed.

thousands of lesson plans for elementary students are primarily what i found online, incidentally, all purporting that the quilt code is a proven fact.

i don't mean to derail this thread, though, so i won't go on about it any more here- i was planning to make a catch-all 'history in the news' post some time this week, though, and i'll definitely mention the quilt business as i think there need to be more things pointing out the other side of the issue than there already are online. feel free to drop by and add your two cents.

Maproomsystems,
Your blog is quite impressive, thank you for the invite! I look forward to your "history in the news" section. And I kind of was wondering about that Hissy comment-- hahaha :) totally messing, I thought it extremely funny!! :)