Riverfront Park

Move over Riverfront Park, Amazon Spheres is here!

The Spokesman-Review’s description of Seattle’s Amazon Spheres, “a place to think and work in a magical natural landscape-under-glass-within the city,” left me with a sad sense of irony. Over the past year, Spokane’s own inner city “magical natural landscape,” Riverfront Park, has transformed from a glorious urban park full of majestic shade trees, flowering bushes and green grass fields to an expanding swath of concrete. Park promenades will no longer wend their way through soothing groves of trees and gardens, but past music-blaring, revenue-generating recreation venues and parking towers. Lost will be the healing benefits of nature, as Riverfront Park becomes an urban amusement park and sports center.

Generating revenue for the city and bringing people downtown are good objectives, but couldn’t the Spokane Park Board have found a way to do this without sacrificing over 160 healthy trees and significantly adding to downtown’s concrete and noise pollution? Isn’t it ironic that Seattle had to build a park, under glass, to achieve the very thing Spokane is working diligently to destroy? How long will it be before we need to build our own Sphere?

Mary Alberts

Spokane