Sculptures Rise in Iowa, Distract From City's Woes

"It is the latest major project in a broad redevelopment, started in 1991, of Des Moines's downtown, which used to bustle during weekdays with insurance and government workers but fell quiet soon after 5 p.m. That has been gradually changing over the past few years, especially with the opening of a new public library, a science center and an events center, as well as a burst of commercial and residential development.

While the recession has slowed the makeover, the sculpture park is providing a cheerful, even optimistic, counterpoint to the economic gloom, as well as to the destruction across Iowa by floods and tornadoes in 2008."