From Space to Place

The City of Salem has purchased a large vacant lot at 289 Derby Street which has long served as an industrial and commercial site given its location on the South River that opens up into Salem Harbor. A few weeks ago a public “placemaking” process commenced, under the auspices of the City, CBA Landscape Architects, Salem Public Space Project and Creative Salem : engaging events are happening every Wednesday night until June 21st and people can also write their ideas on an on-site chalkboard whenever they happen to be passing by. After all the unimaginative private projects that have come our way over the last few years this is a welcome opportunity for the public to imagine and impact a key Salem development, and transform an empty space into an inviting place.

 The lot today and on the 1897 Salem Atlas, marked by the old lightbulb. It was R.C. Manning & Company’s coal and lumber yard then, and it served in a similar capacity well before and after. Below: the process of placemaking.

I’m feeling left out as I have my summer research seminar class every Wednesday night so I’m missing all these events! I guess I’ll just have to put my idea out here. It’s not really original, it’s a bit silly, and it probably doesn’t suit the lot, but here it is: a Monopoly Park. To pay tribute to one of Salem’s most illustrious businesses and products, I’d like to see this lot transformed into some semblance of the iconic board game. This is how I envision it: real estate lots around the perimeter, perhaps just painted concrete (maybe some benches that somehow reference the look of Monopoly houses and hotels), inside a courtyard of grass, with tables that look like Community Chest and Chance cards and topiaries that look like Monopoly tokens! Can’t you picture it? I really can (with a little help from some of the pins below), and I think it would be pretty low maintenance with the exception of the topiaries. Topiaries can be troublesome.

Monopoly in the Park in San Jose, California: Why San Jose and not Salem? Ours could be better: more creative, more green, more place-appropriate, more of a Monopoly Park than Monopoly in the Park.

Monopoly in the Park in San Jose (You can see more images at Anna Fox’s Flickr album); there have also been temporary life-sized Monopoly boards built in other places, including Atlantic City, of course.

Monopoly in the Streets of Chicago: the creation of an anonymous artist referred to as Bored. Those plywood cards could be enlarged for our tables! Dice for stools.

 Street Monopoly by Bored, via Colossal.

I’m not sure how to integrate the Monopoly houses and hotels into the design (benches? public bathrooms? snack bar?) but we could have Monopoly murals on the side facade of the adjoining brick building, just like there are now (this would require Hasbro’s permission–and perhaps we could get some underwriting too?). I’m seeing green, so it would be great if the tokens could be topiaries but I guess they could be sculptures—which would enhance the park’s attraction all year long.

Canadian artist An Te Liu’s Monopoly House in suburban Toronto; Tom Taylor’s mural for Hasbro; a 6-foot tall promotional replica of the new cat token, carted around London in 2013; the displaced iron token (my favorite!!!) and the hat from “Your Move“, (Daniel Martinez, Renee Petropoulis & Roger White), a public art project commissioned by the City of Philadelphia.

So that’s my pitch: a Monopoly Park/ Parker Brothers Place. The other idea that keeps popping into my head is move Samantha to Derby Street, a far more appropriate place than Town House Square. But every time I criticize that stupid statue I get into trouble, so I’m just going to leave that there.