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I've never been to Pittsburgh, but this sounds like cope. San Francisco also used to have a freeway "adorning" its waterfront public area which was mercifully seriously damaged by the hand of God itself. The city took the hint and demolished the whole thing and now it's an absolute pleasure to walk along the waterfront there (and these days you don't even encounter homeless in that area). No constant freeway noise, no pollution, no unsightly overpass.
Robert Moses is perhaps the greatest freeway enjoyer who ever lived, and I'm not surprised he put a freeway in the middle of a park. However, it would absolutely be way better if they buried that thing and put some kind of decorative arch for effect instead of a utilitarian concrete span.
The Pacific Ocean is much nicer than the Ohio river. The one has barking seals while the other has slugs. Pittsburgh’s rivers are its historical interstates and still feel that way today.
The sea lions on fisherman's wharf are actually recent immigrants - they only came in the 90s.
The port of Oakland was actually the first container ship port on the west coast and today is the third busiest American pacific port.
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Moses consulted on the highway plan over a decade before ground broke, and his original design had the interchange at the Point itself, because that's where the existing bridges were. City officials implemented most of the plan but decided to construct new bridges and moved the highway alignment to its current location. While the pedestrian walkway under the interchange isn't exactly beloved, the Fort Pitt Bridge is, and you can't have one without the other. The way the highway divides the space is testament to the attention to detail I mentioned in the post. Using something functional for that purpose seems more natural than constructing a wall or an arch, which would make things seem a little too intentional. The effect is creating without your noticing. Whether or not it's actually better than any other conceivable possibility of your choice is a matter for debate. Would the Golden Gate be more beautiful without the bridge obstructing the view? Would Downtown Pittsburgh be more beautiful if it were left as old growth bottomland forest? Would Black Canyon be better without Hoover Dam backing up the river? Finally, as the series progresses I'm going to criticize a number of ill-conceived projects; if I praise something it's because I like it, not because I'm trying to advance an argument. The point isn't that urban renewal was always good, just that it wasn't necessarily always bad.
Sure you can, they could have had the bridge lead into a tunnel.
Ironically, there's nothing natural about the situation here since we're talking about a freeway overpass!
There's a tremendously long history of using arches and other architectural devices to divide spaces. It seems unlikely to me that, had the freeway been buried instead and the park was divided with something like an arch, that anyone would advocate exhuming the freeway to make it look more natural. So I am inclined to think that defenses of the status quo are just due to path dependence.
Like I said, I haven't been there, but I have had the misfortune of being near freeways, and in my experience, you always notice and rarely for the better.
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