Renaming Tolerance Bridge
Thank goodness someone came to their senses. Now if someone could just 86 that horrid design...
After announcing the “Tolerance Bridge” project, city officials realized there was one thing they couldn’t tolerate: the name.
So, they’re asking Houston artists, writers and other local visionaries to suggest a new name for a proposed pedestrian and biking bridge that will span Buffalo Bayou near Montrose and Allen Parkway.
The $7 million civic art project, with its “twisting arc” design, is intended to celebrate Houston’s cultural diversity and the cosmopolitan sensibility and mutual respect shared by its residents.
Are your eyes bleeding yet? Those two paragraphs are just painful. Any clue how one gets classified as a "local visionar[y]"?
After announcing the project in early December, Mayor Bill White received some feedback about the title, and asked the Houston Arts Alliance to contact its membership for more ideas. The organization is taking suggestions through Jan. 31.
Oh great, the Houston Arts Alliance. The organization that brought Houstonians the Flaming Chicken and the Bouquet of Bathtubs is seeking visionaries to name the ugly bridge.
At least $2 million for the bridge, designed by German arts collaborative Elmgreen & Dragset and architects with the Houston-based SWA Group, will come from private donors. Philanthropist Mica Mosbacher said she came up with the idea for a public art project celebrating tolerance after the 2006 hate-crime beating of David Ritcheson, a 17-year-old Hispanic teen from Spring.
“We did not want the family to feel that was how the majority of Houstonians viewed people of other races,” Mosbacher said.
Then why not name the bridge after David Ritcheson? But if that's not a possibility, it's hard to top the suggestion in the most recommended comment on Chron.com
Name it Geoffrey. Geoffrey is a good, solid name.
It's probably better than anything Houston artists, writers and other local visionaries will come up with. And did you catch the math? It's a $7 million project (for now) that is seeking $2 million from private donors. Guess that means taxpayers get to pay $5 million!
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 01/25/09 06:40 PM | Houston Arts/Culture | Print | Comments (15)
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