Save Hogan’s Fountain’s Teepee: Master Plan Be Damned
Posted: June 23rd, 2011 | Filed under: Community, Ruminations | 7 Comments »
Another weather event has come and gone, thank you very much, and the Hogan’s Fountain Teepee survived.
Long may it stand.
While the brouhaha over the pavilionesque structure in Cherokee Park isn’t the most important issue facing our burg these days, it does seem to be striking a raw nerve. It sure has with me.
Seems Metro Parks and the do good Olmstead Parks Conservancy have developed a Master Plan — doesn’t that sound official — which includes the demolition of the teepee and the erection of some new structures. Apparently that hallowed Master Plan calls for two “more appropriate” replacement structures, which would bring the area into compliance with “the most fundamental of Frederick Law Olmstead’s vision.” Which, according to a C-J letter to the editor from the Conservancy’s president, is that anything that interferes with focus on the landscape must go.
Obviously none of those folks developing the Master Plan hung out under that teepee back in the day, honoring the herb and/or adhering to the focus of Kentuckian Owsley Stanley. Otherwise, they’d know that the teepee in no way infringed on seeing the forest and the trees and all they represented in the evolution of conciousness. The teepee, it can be argued, helped many get in touch with their inner Native American. You know, like Jim Morrison.
President Zinniel, I know your letter to the editor and your Master Plan are well intentioned. The Conservancy does great work. Really great work. Cherokee Park, where I still play to this day as I have been lucky enough to do since my youth, is looking great, thanks to your group and its volunteers.
But your polemic about how we’d be better served by “more appropriate solutions” is a bunch of non-indigenous ragweed.
It’s not like the teepee turned Hogan’s Fountain into a Wigwam Village, like the motels down near Mammoth Cave.
There was a different pavilion there in my youth, if I recall correctly. I’m not sure when the funky teepee was erected, but it’s way nifty. Even if such Native American erections were built mostly by the tribes on the Great Plains.
The teepee is working just fine. The people who picnic regularly during the warm months seem to be enjoying themselves. (As do the guys and gals playing hoops at the adjacent b-ball court. My guess is Mr. Olmstead wasn’t that big a basketball fan, but I don’t hear you talking about getting rid of the court. Or, the parking lot necessary in these contemporary times.)
So, let’s shelve all the “more appropriate” crap. Repair the teepee, and move on to more important matters.
That would be the really appropriate thing to do.
[…] Teepee at Cherokee Park, but there are plenty of folks around town who get all worked up over it. Like C.D. Kaplan, who wants it […]
Long may it stand, indeed! There were a lot of things that Mr. Olmsted wasn’t keen on, like golf courses. We don’t see the Olmsted Conservancy scurrying around trying to Master Plan the Cherokee golf course out of existence, though. Also, no one wants to mention that Mr. Olmsted loved bush honeysuckle and introduced it to Cherokee Park. Now the Conservancy volunteers spend days every year trying to irradiate it.
Which just goes to prove that no one, including Mr. Olmsted, is always right.
About that basketball comment – they do have
plans to move the court and reduce it to a half
court.
To keep in touch with the voice of reason in this situation, follow our Community Page on Facebook:
http://www.Facebook.com/SaveTheTeepee
Even for folks who can’t “work up an opinion” on the TeePee, if Metro Parks is planning to ask Metro Council for $600,000 NEXT YEAR to begin implementing Phase 1 of the Master Plan (including demo & replacement of the TeePee), can you make any sense of trying to spend a fraction of that to restore it now?
And may I please say…damn you auto correct! Those folks work hard trying to “eradicate’ the honeysuckle, not irradiate it! Oops!
I was born in 1973, and from Day one I grew up on Cherokee parkway, and spending my days playing in Cherokee park.
The “tee pee” is an icon. NO WAY should they demolish it. NO WAY.
Hogans fountain and the tee pee are part of the wonderful character of the park. As bad as it was when the turtles were stolen off Hogans Fountain, destroying the tee pee would be worse.
And I don’t think of it as a Tee Pee, I think of it more as an interesting architectural structure, right up there with Frank Lloyd Wrights “falling water” home.
Don’t muck around with MY Cherokee Park.
I never thought of it as a teepee either, until I got involved in saving it. Once we get it officially landmarked, maybe it could be known as the Schickli Pavilion, after its architect who was highly respected and, having met him, I know he is a wonderful man. But whatever it is called, it is an icon in that park and needs to be preserved and protected.
Das ist ja lustig, ich habe gredae auch was fcbers Schwimmen geschrieben! Hier ist es aber leider nicht so schf6n warm wie bei Euch. Man braucht immer noch dicke Jacken und Mfctzen, oft auch noch Handschuhe. Aber der Schnee ist fast weg.