Over the past few years, San Francisco's waterfront has become home to art pieces like an enormous, cartoony bow and arrow and a giant spider. Labor historians have a different idea: A five-story crane built in the early 1970s for loading coconuts.
"Labor historian and folklorist Archie Green just scratches his head and chuckles when it comes to artwork along San Francisco's waterfront, including what he called 'a modern stainless steel skyscraper or some god-damned thing' and 'a gal in a bikini and a little child.'
Green is 91 and sports a stocking cap and a Burgess Meredith glint in his eye. He can warm up a room of government officials like nobody's business. So when the retired shipwright and his pals wanted to get a defunct shipping crane refurbished as a blue-collar addition in the public art and installation column, officials started to listen.
'All of the work on the waterfront is so abstract and so artistic and so representative of high culture,' Green told the Port Commission at its Tuesday meeting in the polished Ferry Building. 'There's nothing on the waterfront today that signifies those of us who built this building, who built this waterfront.'"
Read the full story: How's this for art?
Salt Lake City opens protected bike path on viaduct trail
The 400 South Viaduct Trail features the state's longest continuous piece of public art.
This Seattle sidewalk art only appears when it rains
Prompted to find a silver lining to the gloom of rainy Pacific Northwest days, an artist hit upon a novel solution: water-activated sidewalk paint.
How Placemaking Lost its Way — And How it Can Get Back on Track
The term has often become diluted, getting attached to projects that don’t live up to its lofty aspirations.
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
California plans to bury El Niño’s downpour
If the state plays its cards right, it may be able to store a billion acre-feet of El Niño’s water in aquifers.
Chicago breaks ground on $3 billion megadevelopment
The new neighborhood, titled Foundry Park, will one day host 3,700 residences.
One of Denver’s busiest corridors to gain BRT
The project will span 18 miles and contain 74 bus rapid transit stations.
275,000 bus trips are at stake on Seattle's ballot
If passed, the Seattle Transit Measure would trigger a 0.3% sales tax and raise an average of $138 million per year to maintain and expand Seattle’s bus services.
Texas may pay Israeli company billions to ease water woes
Texas awarded IDE Technologies the contract for its Harbor Island project, which is slated to become the Western Hemisphere's largest desalination plant.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
City of Rosemead
Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
City of Cambridge
Montrose County
The Pocatello Development Authority