Tacoma Arts in Review: Prairie Line Trail
What: Urban Design & Public Art Coffee Klatch
When: May 25 10a.m.-11a.m.
Where: Amocat Café, 625 St. Helens Avenue, Tacoma
The Prairie Line Trail, a $5.83 million rails-to-trails project to link major downtown Tacoma destinations via a pedestrian and bicycle path, is now underway.
The design team chosen to create a public art plan for the project, Todd Bressi and Thoughtbarn, will host an open discussion of the trail’s art component tomorrow, Wednesday, May 25, at the Amocat Café.
The half-mile, two-acre Prairie Line Trail is a historic rail corridor that runs through several landmark areas: the University of Washington-Tacoma campus, the historic Brewery District, the Museum District and the Thea Foss Waterway. The project’s $30,000 public art budget is partially funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).
“The Prairie Line Trail will be a vital component to our culturally vibrant downtown. The NEA’s support will insure that public art plays an instrumental role in defining the trail’s identity,” says Amy McBride, City of Tacoma Arts Administrator.
Todd Bressi and Thoughtbarn (the duo Lucy Begg and Robert Gay) were selected for the public art commission through a national competition. Please join us in welcoming these innovative designers to Tacoma!
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Todd Bressi is an award-winning Urban Designer and Planner who brings a foundation of research-based design and a public participation approach to the Prairie Line Trail project. He edited the outstanding design journal, Places, for a decade and teaches planning and design courses at the University of Pennsylvania. His work has won national awards and been published in numerous professional magazines. Bressi received a B.A. in Urban Studies from Columbia and a Master of City Planning from UC Berkeley. www.artfulplaces.com
Thoughtbarn, the Austin-based collaborative team of Lucy Begg and Robert Gay, is a multidisciplinary studio that champions the artful design of everyday spaces through buildings, urban strategies, public art installations, and furniture. Some projects of note include a solar-powered way-finding system for the Lance Armstrong bikeway, and a house which can be fully recycled. Invention, collaboration, and resourcefulness are at the core of their practice. www.thoughtbarn.us.
By Lisa Kinoshita
ABOUT TACOMA ARTS IN REVIEW
Tacoma Arts In Review, a new column on Exit 133, regularly shares timely reviews and stories on art happenings in Tacoma written by local college students and community members. For more information and application details, go here.
Filed under: tacoma-arts-in-review, prairie-line-trail
12 comments
A Altered-Chords May 25, 2011
Does the Armstrong bikeway include EPO and blood doping stops?
L low bar May 25, 2011
so we can neutralize a man in pakistan but we can’t draw out and nullify threats to the home turf community? plant those bushes and bait the offenders. capture. penalty: death by ru ru.
J Jesse May 25, 2011
If tacoma was built along this rail line, why not a DMU (bio-diesel powered streetcar) from Ruston to tacoma to south tacoma? All rails meet at tolefson plaza making it the true center of tacoma, the rails and right away are basically all there already and it looks like there’s even room for it from the looks of the pictures.
T Tim Smith May 26, 2011
Sell the “airspace” to Comcast in exchange for them giving up the billboards. Then we could build a three block long digital roof over this industrial canyon and create an all-weather, 24 hour arcade with shops, markets, late night entertainment and digital images playing on the overhead screen.
Think Las Vegas mixed with a European Central Market.
M Mofo from the Hood May 26, 2011
I like this idea of gentrifying one of the main hobo trails through Tacoma.
Heck, why wait any longer for the hobo’s to take charge and lay down some concrete for the upper classes.
$5.83 million to promote public art is some kind of stimulus package…
Can’t wait to push my shopping cart full of stuffed plastic bags through my new-old neighborhood…
Yep, like Mr. Marx said, if you just change the economic circumstances of folks then you will change their human nature. Thank you taxpayers and City of Tacoma for giving this old hobo trail and me and my hobo friends a new identity. It feels real good to be a culturally vibrant and vital part of Tacoma.
V Volcano Boycotting RR Anderson May 26, 2011
Take that Rick Jones!
J J Cote' June 2, 2011
Nearly six million buck for another yuppie walking trail to nowhere. Where is all this tax money coming from in the days of budget cuts, layoffs and recession? I see it as more lost parking for a destination that few people can drive to to begin with. Downtown is becoming more and more shopper UNfriendly. Keep compounding the problem and soon the only small businesses in DT will be espresso stands and restaraunts that are overpriced.
Quit, already with the pipedreams of trolleys that people won’t ride funded by money that should be spent to feed and house people. It has (hopefully) run it’s coarse.
D dolly varden June 2, 2011
@8: If Tacoma doesn’t invest in measures (like bike/ped trails) to improve its quality of life and attractiveness to the outside world, you can rest assured the city won’t be able to afford social services. No one will want to live here and pay taxes. It’s not a zero sum game.
M meta rick June 2, 2011
There are yuppies in Tacoma? Yikes!! Hopefully “it” has run it’s coarse and/or course.
M Mofo from the Hood June 2, 2011
Hey! This new development is just like Broadway Plaza, but it’s not.
Z Z June 5, 2011
Speaking of trails downtown, its too bad the history museum cant remove their fence seperating the bridge of glass from Pacific Avenue.
T Tim Smith June 7, 2011
You should come ride the Water Ditch trail here in South Tacoma, sneak out to Calvary Cemetery and see the beavers, or watch the eagles in Oak Tree Park.