Usually in this blog I’m noticing things that feel just right. Over the weekend I was Goldilocks and noticed a location where it felt like folks were doing a little too much and another situation where it felt like way too little was happening.
On Saturday I went to the Seaport Market for the first time in months (Sheila is there every week gathering our supplies). I was surprised to see the market building had new (to me) awnings decorated with a stylized leaf design.
Here is what the building used to look like. Awnings now conceal much of the dark brown, wood siding along the facade.
from Halifax Seaport website.
I often change my mind, but my first thought was Why? When the Market building opened it was praised for its green aspirations, and celebrated for its modernist looks. Maybe I’m missing something but to my eyes the awnings diminish the architecture, without elevating my farmer’s market experience. More unnecessary stuff to maintain.
This was the weekend of Saltscapes East Coast Expo at Exhibition Park. Once I get among the exhibitors I have a great time, but first I have to recover from the soul-sucking depression of the arrival experience. The absence of care and maintenance in the parking lots and grounds makes your greeting feel like an insult.
The unkempt edges of the site are lined with garbage. Not stuff that has accumulated over the winter -this is heritage material.
April 2015
I don’t recall that the maintenance has ever been acceptable. Here are some images from May 2013. The fog softens the horror.
A parking lot.
The edge of a parking lot.
The exhibition building, viewed very dimly through the fog, from the main parking area.
Picking up garbage, grading the parking areas and maintaining crisp edges between parking lots and the surrounding landscape would be a huge improvement.
The Saltscapes Expo website uses words like, quality, comfort, rewarding, celebration, to brand their event. It’s surprising they cannot get the facility they rent on the same page.
Post script
Sad, sad Exhibition Park has ignored a wonderful opportunity to acknowledge their surroundings. Imagine if they embraced the northern landscape and healed the scar they have created. The neatly graveled parking areas could be edged with an an acre of Christmas trees here and a field of blueberries there. Stands of native birch look striking in every season. Indian pear blooming with a chorus of Spring peepers; sugar maples glowing in the fall. Oh, that could be the Park in Exhibition Park! Imagine that.
