Downtown Mall tree plan recommends freeing fountains from cafe spaces

The fountains, once participatory features on the mall, have been choked off from the public for years.

On Tuesday, September 3 Wolf/Josey Landscape Architects will show City Council a PowerPoint presentation about their Downtown Mall Tree Management Plan (it will come early in the evening, after a report on UVA's Memory Project), which includes what you'd expect -- a report on the health of the trees, their historic/design context, recommendations for removal, maintenance, and future health, etc. However, the plan also calls for something that’s been talked about for years — reclaiming the spaces around the mall's fountains for the public. Indeed, the presentation includes this dramatic juxtaposition of old and new mall fountain photos. How did it come to this? Was everyone just more chill back in the day?

This is kind of a big deal. I was writing about the public being cut off from the mall’s fountains in 2007! Landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, who designed the mall, had plans for a larger participatory fountain plaza at the east end of the Mall where the pavilion is located, but …