![\"\"](\"http:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/IMG_1807.jpg\" "\\"IMG_1807\\"")
<\/a>latte anyone?<\/p><\/div>\n
As reported online in the Bethesda Patch most of the commenters think it was at best unnecessary and at worst, a scheme to keep people from sitting out in front of the store. You can chime in as well by voting online. Unfortunately, out of 209 votes so far, 121 people (57%) don’t like it.<\/p>\n
<\/a>are there enough places to sit?<\/p><\/div>\n
This is not a Bethesda phenomenon. In fact, just last week, the New York Times <\/a>reported that Portland, Maine has removed a sculpture called Tracing the Fore. The article quotes Shawn McCarthy, who owns the bar across the street from where the artwork stood.<\/p>\n \u201cIn one way it was a conversation piece, but the conversation just was never positive.\u201d<\/p>\n But what are we talking about these days? In earlier eras, we shared a language of methaphor and images, as well as a way of looking at public space and events. Today, victory columns and story-telling pediments <\/a>are irrelevant media. Even our view of history has changed; the great men are gone. And the lines between public and private space\u00a0haveblurred. Streets and spaces that are designed to appear public may\u00a0 be adjunct commercial space.<\/p>\n The interesting thing is that this Bethesda space hardly needs public art, let alone a contentious scultpure. As one Patch commenter noted, this is perceived as Bethesda’s town square, an active intersection of streets, bikes routes, sidewalks, and shops. It already had almost everything that urbanist William H. Whyte <\/a>claimed you needed for a good urban space–sun,\u00a0touchable water, food–just needed\u00a0some movable chairs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Everyone has an opinion about the new fountain at what people consider the “town square” of Bethesda–the plaza in front of Barnes & Noble Bookstore.<\/p>\n As reported online in the Bethesda Patch most of the commenters think it was at best unnecessary and at worst, a scheme to keep people from sitting out in front of the store. You can chime in as well by voting online. Unfortunately, out of 209 votes so far, 121 people (57%) don’t like it.<\/p>\n This is not a Bethesda phenomenon. In fact, just last week, the New York Times reported that Portland, Maine has removed a sculpture called Tracing the Fore. The article quotes Shawn McCarthy, who owns the bar across the street … Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,299,20],"tags":[40,307,308,9,487,306],"class_list":["post-2675","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-places","category-public-spaces","tag-bethesda","tag-bethesda-patch","tag-plazas","tag-public-art","tag-public-spaces","tag-william-h-whyte"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2675"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11338,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2675\/revisions\/11338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2675"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2675"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montgomeryplanning.org\/blog-design\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2675"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}