I’ll probably include this information on my post for the San Antonio Zoo, but I’m going to put this here just so that I have it in the blog until such a time as I can update the post. Or maybe I’ll just link this post there. Actually, now that I think about it, that’s probably the best way to go.
Lucky the elephant is no longer all by herself in her enclosure. As of today, the San Antonio Zoo has taken on a middle-aged Asiatic elephant named Nicole. Nicole was formerly a performer with the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The zoo says that they matched Nicole with Lucky by comparing their personalities, sort of like a dating app, I guess, and they hope that the two will turn out to be compatible.
One thing in Nicole’s favor is that she is a former circus elephant. This means that she is already socialized to humans and should pick up the routine at the zoo pretty quickly.
Let’s hope that the new roommates hit it off and have a long friendly association together.
This post is due to go live on June 27. I had hoped to go to the Witte Museum on June 21 to take pictures and then write that post. It is now June 19 and I haven’t made that trip to the Witte yet. So, since I did finally get to the San Antonio Museum of Art (“SAMA”) for a very, very fast trip (40 minutes!) on June 5, let’s do that instead and then I’ll visit the Witte on Tuesday and get some pictures and post that article on what looks like July 5.
Meanwhile, I have another National Geographic issue to get to reading.
I have been going to art museums for just about as long as I can remember. So, again, once we moved to San Antonio, the now-ex and I had to check out the art museum. I think it took us a couple of years, but it was well worth it. And one Alex was born, we started going even more often.
A slightly less-than-perfect panoramic photo of The San Antonio Museum of Art, 2016
SAMA has the usual portraits and landscapes and modern art (they have a Warhol soup can (Pea Soup, I think) somewhere; the last time I could find it, it was near the entrance to the auditorium). But the two areas that the museum is best known for are its collections of Latin American and of Asian art.
In 1998, the museum opened the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for Latin American Art (you can just see the leftmost edge of this addition in the far right of the image above). Nelson A. Rockefeller was grandson of John D. Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil (which was later broken up into various companies including ExxonMobil (which used to be two companies)). Rockefeller also held a number of government positions, most notably as Vice President under Gerald Ford from 1974 until 1977. In his private life, however, Rockefeller was an avid art collector. One of his favorite things to collect was pre-Columbian and folk art of Latin America. After Rockefeller’s death in 1979, his heirs began searching for museums to display his art, and San Antonio became home to 2,500 pieces. Not all of the art in the center is from Rockefeller’s collection, but a pretty decent number of them are. The center also has a gallery of modern/contemporary Latin American art.
The Lenora and Walter F. Brown Asian Art Wing (the big glass block in the left of the image above), which opened in 2005, is the other section that the museum is known for. Walter F. Brown was active in the oil and gas industry and founded a company called Delray Oil. The Asian Art Wing has thousands of artworks from China, India, Japan, Korea, Nepal, Pakistan, Thailand, Tibet and Vietnam. the Asian Art Wing has an extensive collection of Chinese ceramics.
My own favorite, though, is the Art of the Mediterranean World section (the fist floor of the left-hand tower on the left of the above image). This is where our old friend Gilbert M. Denman, Jr., comes in. You do see his name elsewhere in the museum but quite a lot of the artworks, including the wonderfully restored statues of Marcus Aurelius and Trajan, were his donations. Denman (and others, I think) also donated a number of pieces of carvings from the “Amarna” period, which is when Akhenaten ruled Egypt. These pieces include at least one that I’m pretty sure is Akhenaten’s abdomen, and, my own favorite, solar rays that end in hands.
I’ve been debating whether to write up the Witte so early in my blog. There are only, like, 11 museums in the city, and that’s including Barney Smith’s Toilet Seat Art Museum, the Magic Lantern Castle Museum, and the US Army Medical Department Museum, all of which are already better covered by other sites (including Atlas Obscura) than I think I could do myself. So, since I’ve already covered two of the eight remaining museums, I was considering writing up the Witte later, particularly since there are something like 200 city parks (and that’s not counting county parks, parks of suburbs that are contained within the borders of the city, or state and national parks that are in or near the city), and I’ve only written up, by my count, five of them.
On the other hand, I will be doing two writeups on the Witte. They’re in the process of a major remodel which won’t be done until sometime in 2017, so I will do one on the history of the museum and its current status and then another in another year or so on the finished museum.
So, should I do a park or two (or, you know, seven) and get those out of the way, or do Witte Museum Part 1?
I have to go to bed now, so I’ll sleep on this for tonight. I can’t wait to see what I decide to do.
Remember the quarries in Brackenridge Park? The ones that were put there, at least in part, to support the production of cement? We’re still there.
This area didn’t go immediately from empty land to quarry to park, though. For a period beginning in 1863, this area was a tannery. In 1863, Texas was part of the Confederacy, so the products of the tannery were used by the Confederate Army. This is why it’s generally referred to as the “Confederate Tannery.” I wish there were some photos from that era. It sounds like there was a quarry there, then a tannery, then maybe they did more quarrying, and then it became a park. There were cameras in 1863, so maybe someone took a picture of the tannery at some point, but if there is, I can’t find it.
The San Antonio Zoo actually began, from what I can tell, three times. The first was a menagerie of sorts in San Pedro Springs Park. From what I’ve read, there was also a menagerie at the Hot Wells Hotel (post to follow, perhaps not until the planned county park opens, if that happens in the next couple of years). George Washington Brackenridge actually established the zoo in the park, with bear, buffalo, deer, elk, lions, and monkeys. An article I read years ago, and that I cannot find now, said that the menagerie at the Hot Wells hotel (which consisted of a bear and some ostriches at the very least) was moved to Brackenridge Park once Brackenridge set up his zoo there.
Now the ex-husband and I have always been fond of zoos, and we heard good things about the San Antonio Zoo, so it was one of the first places we visited when we got here. We visited so early in our residence here, in fact, that we had no idea where we actually were going and we ended up going around the long way.
I love the zoo, but be warned. A lot of the 750 species of animal at the zoo are birds. I stopped and counted it up and it looks like around 25% of the species are birds. I’m not sure if that’s more or less than for most zoos, but it feels like more. A lot more. Of the good, the San Antonio Zoo is a player in the attempts to breed the Attwater’s prairie chicken and the whooping crane.
Actually, never mind. I found on the San Antonio Zoo’s website where they state that they have “One of the largest bird collections in the country.” So that answers that question. Definitely bird-intensive.
Let’s see if you can guess what animals live here. Yep. Birds. This is the Hixon Bird House.
In fact, that page on the website says “we participate in over 230 endangered species programs.” The prairie chicken and whooping crane are two. They used to breed snow leopards, as well. I think there was something else in the snow leopard cage the last time I was there, though. I wonder what the other 228 species are . . . .
One of the relatively recent upgrades to the zoo, and one that has gotten a lot of positive press, is their “Africa Live” area. This is an area that has a focus on, as it says on the label, animals of Africa. The entrance is an air-conditioned building that has primarily smaller animals, fish and reptiles and things of that nature. There is also a viewing window for pygmy hippos. Beyond that building is an open area with more animals, including a new (as of 2015) feature where for $5 you can feed three lettuce leaves to a giraffe.
Speaking of interactive things (and also going back to the bird theme), the zoo also has Lory Landing, where you can feed nectar to lorikeets. The Rainbow Lories tend to be the friendliest, so of course, I always attempt to coax one of the more standoffish species onto my hand. What can I say? I’m a rebel.
On the negative side, the zoo gets some bad press for Lucky, our one remaining Asiatic elephant. And, as much as I love the zoo, I do feel bad for her when I see her all alone in her enclosure. But the zoo has a page detailing her care, including the fact that the USDA, the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, and “third party agencies” have examined her habitat and routine and said that it is, at the very least, adequate, and sometimes more than adequate. She also has seven employees, including two full-time veterinarians, seeing to her physical and emotional health. The zoo has considered getting another elephant to be a companion for her, but they worry that, at the age of around 56, she is getting to the end of her life expectancy. The stress of adjusting to another elephant might have negative consequences for her health. At the moment, there is a lawsuit seeking to send her to a sanctuary, but, again, she’s getting old and separating her from the only home she’s ever known and changing her routine may well also be bad for her health. Personally, I don’t know why they would work as hard as they have to keep her (not to mention the expense of her staff!) unless they honestly believed, and were getting feedback from outside organizations they trust, that keeping her in her current situation is the best thing for her.
June 27, 2016: Lucky now has a roommate. You can read the update I posted here.
The zoo is open 365 days a year. Whenever I tell anyone this, I point out that they have to send people in to take care of the animals anyway, why not have a few more employees there and make a few bucks? And San Antonians take advantage of the fact that the zoo is even open on Christmas. Christmas of 2015, Alex and I went to the zoo and there were no parking spaces available. We ended up going downtown instead.
Most of the paths at the zoo seem like they should be wheelchair accessible. I think that the steep uphill path in the Rift Valley area at the back of the zoo might be a bit much for wheelchair users. I’ve also heard that some of the restrooms are difficult to access, but I seem to recall a restroom in the Africa Live building that didn’t have the sharp 90-degree turns of the restrooms in other areas of the zoo.
I really need to start a list of places I’ve written up so that I don’t repeat destinations. On the other hand, so long as I don’t say exactly the same thing each time, I suppose that several writeups on the same destinations might be acceptable. It’s not like I am likely to run out of things to say about any given destination.
Also, I’m now two months and almost a week out from my trip to Chicago and a return to Northern Illinois Destinations. I had planned to post this on June 2, but it’s been storming lately and I’m old school — I unplug my computer when there’s thunder and lightning. This has cut into my writing time. I’m writing this very early in the morning of June 3, and more rain is expected, but it doesn’t look like it will storm any time soon.
I was hoping to find my photos of the San Antonio Museum of Art before now, but I haven’t. Failing that, I was also hoping to make a trip out to the museum to take some new pictures, but that didn’t happen either. So, on to another park (and then to three destinations within the park). That should buy me another couple of weeks before I need to get those pictures.
George Washington Brackenridge was a “Yankee” from Indiana who made a fortune, near as I can figure, selling cotton on the black market during the Civil War. After the war finished, Brackenridge moved to Texas. He settled in San Antonio, where he founded the San Antonio National Bank and its sister institution the San Antonio Loan and Trust (I believe that the San Antonio National Bank that existed in the late 20th Century and is now known as Vantage Bank Texas is a different bank). Brackenridge designed the headquarters of the San Antonio National Bank, which still stands on Commerce Street and, at the time I’m writing this, is a law office. I’ve always wondered where the vault was in the bank. Perhaps someday when I’m downtown I will knock on their door and ask.
Brackenridge also was involved in the San Antonio Water Works Company, one reservoir of which is now on the property of the San Antonio Botanical Garden.
In 1869, Brackenridge bought a house near the headwaters of the San Antonio River and enlarged it into a mansion, which he named Fernridge. He purchased land alongside the river to the south of Fernridge as well, though I’m not sure how much of the land between the two, which is now the campus of the University of the Incarnate Word, Hildebrand Street, and the Miraflores estate, he owned. The land to the south of Hildebrand, which was owned by Brackenridge, was, at first, part of the San Antonio Water Works. Two of the pumphouses still stand in the park today, one is at the northern end of the park and the other is near the clubhouse for the Brackenridge Park Golf Course.
The land which is now Brackenridge Park was also the original headquarters of the Alamo Cement Company (which has had several names, including the Alamo Portland and Roman Cement Company). In 1880, two men, William Lloyd and George Kalteyer, realized that the stone near the river was of a quality suitable for making cement. They founded the Alamo Cement Company and set up operations. Some of the buildings of the company, including the kiln, still stand in the park today. The quarries are now the sites of the Japanese Tea Garden and the San Antonio Zoo.
The smokestack of the kiln of the Alamo Cement factory.
Brackenridge’s original gift to the city was of 199 acres. Brackenridge was fairly progressive for his time, supporting women’s right to vote. Brackenridge did live to see the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave the vote to most American women. There was a hink in that women who married foreign nationals between 1907, when the Expatriation Act, and 1940 lost their citizenship. Some women who married foreign nationals got to retain their citizenship after 1920, when the Cable Act was passed, but the Expatriation Act was not repealed until 1940. There were also practical barriers, such as literacy tests and poll taxes, to voting for immigrant and non-white women in much of the country as late as 1966. But that’s all beyond the scope of this blog post.
Brackenridge was also a prohibitionist. The argument went that alcoholism (and alcohol use in general) was hurting the people of the United States, women and children in particular, and so prohibitionists wanted to make alcohol illegal. And they got their way for 13 years. Prohibition didn’t work out. Illegal production and sale of alcohol flourished which just exacerbated the problems that the prohibitionists had wanted to stop. Additionally, since the sale of alcohol was illegal, it wasn’t taxed, which hurt the economy. Since Brackenridge was a prohibitionist, he forbade the drinking of alcohol in the park. In a twist ending, though, Emma Koehler later donated an additional 144 acres to the park. Koehler’s late husband had been owner of the Pearl Brewery. Since Koehler’s money had come from the sale of alcohol, she allowed consumption of alcohol in her gift. This divide is still present today. In the Brackenridge gift, there is no consumption of alcohol, but it is allowed in the Koehler part of the park.
Today, Brackenridge Park holds three pavilions, 1.7 miles of walking trails, the San Antonio Zoo, the Japanese Tea Gardens, sports fields, the Sunken Garden Theatre (an outdoor venue for plays, concerts and other kinds of gatherings), a golf course, and the Witte Museum. The park also has several interesting bridges across the San Antonio River, including a cement bridge carved to look like wood and an iron bridge which was moved to the park from St. Mary’s Street downtown (see image below). I will be doing writeups on the zoo, the tea gardens, and the museum in future South Texas Destinations postings. The Museum Reach portion of the River Walk goes around the golf course and then through the park.
The St. Mary’s Street bridge in Brackenridge Park. I cannot for the life of me remember how I managed to get this angle on the bridge. I think that the river must have bent right there. I do know that I was not standing in the water when I took this.
Most of Brackenridge Park is wheelchair accessible. I’ll try to cover specifics as I write up other parts of the park.
I think I’m done with downtown destinations (though I reserve the right to revisit downtown at any time in the future). I should probably start to write up some of the parks that I’ve visited in the last few years. I guess I’ll start with the park that I visited on Saturday, April 23, Denman Estate Park.
Gilbert M. Denman, Jr. was an attorney and philanthropist who lived in San Antonio. Denman donated many Egyptian, Greek, and Roman artifacts to the San Antonio Museum of Art (review to follow). When Denman died in 2004 at the age of 83, his only heirs were two cousins, and so the executors of his estate broke his real estate into two parcels and sold one to the City of San Antonio and the other (which contained the structures on the property) to the University of the Incarnate Word. The 12.52 acre parcel that belongs to the city has become Denman Estate Park.
When you arrive at Denman Estate Park, the first thing you notice is Denman’s mansion. This is now owned by the University of the Incarnate Word and you can photograph it, but it is private property and there are signs saying that trespassers will be prosecuted.
As you travel down the 0.36-mile path, there will be a labyrinth on your right-hand side. I like to walk the labyrinth when I visit. After the labyrinth, the path goes around a pond. On the far side of the pond is a pavilion donated to the park by the city of Gwangju, South Korea. The pavilion was built in Korea and then disassembled, shipped to the United States, and reassembled by the artisans who built the pavilion. There are signs saying that people should stay off of the pavilion. A friend who works in the construction industry says that the pavilion was built with traditional methods. There is not a single nail in the whole thing. This means that it is probably not going to fall down if you go up in it, but it also doesn’t comply with San Antonio municipal building codes and thus is unfit for human occupancy in the city. Also, keeping people out of it will keep it looking as nice as it can for as long as it can. So just admire it from the ground and don’t go up in it.
The Gwangju Pavilion from the far side of the pond, Denman Estate Park, San Antonio, Texas
There is another branch of the path that passes down through a wooded area behind the pavilion. I think I’ve only been down that path once or twice, and it’s a very nice, shady walk.
In front of the house is a statue of a mermaid labeled “AMA MARIA ” and with a set of coordinates. In Spanish, “Ama” is “he, she, or it loves,” so I assumed that the name is in Spanish. It isn’t. The statue is part of a charity art project to raise awareness of the state of the world’s oceans. The explanation for the “AMA” name is that this is the title used for female pearl divers in Japan and Korea. It looks like there are nine of them in existence, and the website tells how to purchase one, if you have €15,000 plus tax (and shipping if you live outside of Europe) burning a hole in your pocket. AMA Maria belongs to the University of the Incarnate Word, but she is on the park side of the house. I’m not sure if she’s on private property or not.
Denman Estate Park is a nice little park to visit if you happen to be in the neighborhood or if you have half an hour or so to spare. The main path is labeled Level 1, so it is wheelchair accessible. The path behind the pavilion is unlabeled, but it seemed to be no higher than Level 2 to me. There are some waterfowl in the park. The Sebastapol geese seem to be the most aggressive of them, and I’ve never had them do more than hiss at me. If you happen to have any ornithophobes in your group, you may want to be cautious on your visit.
My home is in the area where the hail hit on Tuesday, April 12, 2016. Fortunately, I’m not in Helotes, which is a suburb just outside of FM 1604 (commonly referred to as “Loop 1604”) and was pretty much the hardest hit. Their H-E-B (a large supermarket chain) and Walmart stores were both closed by hail damage.
However, my father’s and my cars were parked outside and both sustained pretty bad damage. Fortunately they were under a tree, so it wasn’t as bad as it might have been. My dad has an appointment to get his damaged glass replaced next week and if that works out as smoothly as the people on the phone promised I’ll be getting my damaged glass replaced soon after that.
Nevertheless, worries about my car, and my roof, and debating whether to make a claim (I finally did so, but I may withdraw it depending on how my dad’s glass replacement works out) took up far more of my mental faculties than I could spare this week. I’m finally getting it together and finishing up the December 2015 National Geographic, so expect that writeup on April 19 followed by Manitowoc, Wisconsin, on April 21.
The 1889 World’s Fair had the Eiffel Tower. The 1893 World’s Fair had the Ferris Wheel. And the 1968 World’s Fair had the Tower of the Americas.
The Tower of the Americas, getting on towards sunset, Christmas Day, 2015.
The centerpiece and theme structure of HemisFair ’68, the tower still dominates the skyline of San Antonio today. The Tower of the Americas is known largely for four things:
Fireworks. Traditionally, the city’s official Fourth of July and New Year’s Eve fireworks display have been set off with the Tower as a backdrop.
The annual Cystic Fibrosis Foundation Lonestar Tower Climb and Run. This is a one-mile run followed by a quick jog up the steps in the core of the Tower. Climbing the steps of the Tower sounds like fun. Running up the steps does not sound like fun.
The rotating restaurant at the top of the Tower. For years the restaurant was operated by the same people who run the Jim’s restaurant chain. In 2004 the concession was taken over by Landry’s. Landry’s is a Texas chain of seafood restaurants that are nicer than casual dining, but not so fancy as what you normally think of when you think of a “fine dining” establishment. Traditionally, my family would go to the Landry’s that used to be on Riverside Drive* when we would go up to Austin to watch the bats at the Ann Richards/Congress Avenue Bridge. We could drop in in our jeans and t-shirts and not feel out-of-place. The Chart House Restaurant, the restaurant in the Tower, is fancy. Lots of tourists probably drop in in their jeans and t-shirts, and I’m sure they get fine service, but if you go, you probably want to wear your nicest jeans and a polo shirt instead, perhaps.
The observation deck. This is what most people go up in the tower for. There are two levels — an interior section that had historic photographs showing what things used to look like in the direction where you are looking and an exterior level that has only plexiglass and wires separating you from the outside. It was very windy in the exterior observation deck the day we went.
*This restaurant is, as of the time I’m writing this, a Joe’s Crab Shack.
The Institute of Texan Cultures (“ITC”) is hard to really pin down simply. The building was the Texas Pavilion in HemisFair ’68 and the ITC is now a museum dedicated to the cultural origins of Texans, I guess? Inside the museum, there are sections dedicated to the prehistoric peoples of Texas, the indigenous population, and many of the (largely European) nations that had immigrants to Texas (Germany has a large section which includes an entire gazebo). There is also a display on the history of Jewish people in Texas, and an entire sharecropper’s cabin from the early 1900s.
The Institute of Texan Cultures, San Antonio, Texas, in 2014.
Outside the building is what is known as the “back forty.” This area holds a number of buildings representing different eras of Texas’s history. There’s a one-room schoolhouse, an adobe house, a “dogtrot” log cabin (that is a kind of cabin that has two separate buildings connected by a sort of breezeway), a stone building that is supposed to represent the forts of Texas, and a barn.
From what I can determine, the ITC is a pretty standard fourth-grade field trip in San Antonio. In Texas, fourth grade is dedicated to Texas state history. I was one of the chaperones when Alex’s fourth-grade class made the trip, so I’ve had that experience, at least.
Once you’re out of fourth grade, however, the only time most residents are likely (though not, of course, guaranteed) to return is for one of the two annual festivals held there. The first weekend after the lunar new year is the Asian New Year festival. City organizations representing many of the cultures of Asia that have communities here come and sell representative samples of food. Traditionally, I get a masala dosa (from the Indian vendor), a bubble drink (from Tong’s Thai) and a kalua pork (from the Hawaiian vendor). Martial arts and Asian dancing organizations give demonstrations and/or performances, as appropriate, and the San Antonio Bonsai Society and Ikebana San Antonio also have displays on the ground floor of the building.
The other festival is the Texas Folklife Festival, held the second weekend of June. The Texas Folklife Festival is a much bigger deal. You can buy the t-shirts not just at the event but in stores as well. A lot of the same Asian vendors are there for the Folklife Festival, and there are a lot of other cultures represented, including a Native American booth, and a large number of European cultures (Germany, Belgium, Scotland, Ireland, and others — in past years they have had a Czech booth and a Spanish booth, but neither has been there in recent years). I at the very least have to get a Belgian waffle, though they’re just ordinary waffles and not liège waffles. But regular waffles are okay in my opinion. Sandy Oaks Olive Orchard traditionally has a vendor table, and I bought a sapling from them back in, oh, 2006 or 2007, I think. I had my first crop of olives in 2014. It rained too much for olives in 2015. It may have rained enough that it won’t fruit this year, either.
All in all, though, even if you aren’t there for one of the festivals (though if you are able to be there for either one, I highly recommend going), it’s a nice little history museum and, if you didn’t attend fourth grade in San Antonio, it’s probably worth a trip.
HemisFair Park is the site of the 1968 World’s Fair. It has pretty much been a standard park for a long time, a little bit of walking, a playground, buildings to look at, things of that nature.
The 20 houses that were saved from demolition prior to the fair are in the park, and are all currently empty. A number of the other pavilions from the fair are also still there. There is a playground and also part of the Mission Espada Acequia (I’m not sure if I’ve covered the acequias before. They were irrigation ditches that started at the San Antonio River and traveled towards the missions). My now-ex and I, on our first visit to HemisFair Park, got attacked by mosquitoes. We’d been living in San Antonio for a few years by then and had, up until that point, never seen a single mosquito. I guess the relative lack of mosquitoes is something to be said for living in a paved, clear-cut semi-arid place. Probably the only thing to be said for the paving, clear-cutting, and semi-aridness, but it’s something.
There are two water features in HemisFair park as well. We found the first one a few years ago after the Asian New Year Festival when we took a shortcut through HemisFair Park back to our bus stop. The other we just discovered on Christmas Day of 2015. Alex and I went downtown to see the Christmas lights and got there several hours too early. So, we walked down to the Institute of Texan Cultures and then up through HemisFair Park. We took a right turn when we normally make a left and discovered a beautiful fountain with water cascading down a sort of ziggurat-ish structure. We hung around there for a while, taking the path to the top and just enjoying the water.
The top of one of the water features at HemisFair Park, Christmas Day, 2015
The Mexico Pavilion from the fair is one of the only buildings that I can find in the park that’s still open to the public. This building is now the Mexican Cultural Institute (and it is the only national pavilion, aside from the United States Pavilion, that is still in the park). Kitty-corner behind the Mexican Cultural Institute is the San Antonio branch of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (“UNAM”). The San Antonio campus of UNAM is primarily a language school. I considered taking Spanish classes there at one time, but never have had the free time to do so. And if I were to do forward in my Spanish education, I would probably want to get a degree, probably a master’s degree.
There are three buildings left over from the fair which are not part of the park. Two stand on the southern edge of the park, along César E. Chávez Boulevard. One of these two is the John H. Wood Jr. Federal Courthouse, which originally was the Confluence Theater of the United States pavilion of the fair. The other is now the Institute of Texan Cultures (“ITC”), which originally was the State of Texas Pavilion. The third building is the Henry B. González Convention Center. Both the courthouse and the convention center have fallen into disrepair, which leads me to what is likely to be my final point with regard to the park.
Much of this information is soon to be out-of-date. The city is currently overhauling the park. There is a new convention center which, I think, is now complete. Soon the will raze the old convention center. The city also has $135 million earmarked for a new courthouse. They will overhaul most of the park, as well. The plan is to put an apartment building in the park and there will be some retail businesses added. I read something just today about the city wanting to put restaurants and other businesses in the empty houses in the park, and part of the population of the city is agitating to remove the ITC building and move the museum to a new location more central in the park. The University of Texas at San Antonio, which owns the ITC, is resisting any such changes.
The ITC is surrounded by a metal fence. I would like to see that fence done away with. One of the big arguments of those who want to see the museum razed is that it doesn’t feel like part of the park. Removing that damned fence would go a long way towards making the museum feel like part of the park (the other would be removing the parking lot, but in a car-centric city like San Antonio, I don’t think that will happen). I believe that the ITC is one of only three museums that I’ve been to that have fences around them. One other is the McNay Art Museum, which used to be a private home in a not-very-pedestrian-friendly area, and the other is the Vatican Museums in Italy, and it would be weird to take down the centuries-old wall there to make the museums more accessible. I’ve been to a lot of museums mostly, but not necessarily all, in Chicago, New York City, San Antonio, and the District of Columbia. I’ve even been to the Reading Museum (because I wasn’t about to miss a chance to see England’s copy of the Bayeux Tapestry). And people can just walk up to just about all of the ones I can think of. Maybe I should have left this to my post on the ITC, which is scheduled for April 15, more or less, but I’m on a roll now, so I’ll just leave it.
This will probably end up being a Part 1. Part 2 will follow in another two years or so, once they have the official opening of the renovated park.
