the destruction of kiley gardens
The City Times (a free mailer from the St. Pete Times) had a super picture of the wrecked downtown Kiley Gardens on the cover. The newspaper indicated that the park was gone due to neglect. 
Unfortunately, this is only a part of the story. The park has been bludgeoned.
If you have been reading Sticks of Fire, you know most of the story. It’s true that the City of Tampa neglected the park for years. But then Mayor Pam came along, and it seems that she simply does not like this internationally recognized park.
The main problem with the park is that it is built on top of a parking garage that leaks. Obviously, the leaks need to be repaired by removing the park landscaping, fixing the leaks, and then replacing the surface. A local group of architects called YARD-OPS had volunteered one Saturday each month to clean up the park. Each month they hauled off over 20 bags of branches, leaves, trash and debris. YARD-OPS had been working to catalog all of the original designs by Kiley in order to preserve the original plan, and even arranged to sell some of the crepe myrtles to be able to put some funding towards the new landscaping.
The Mayor met with the group and committed to save the park. For some reason, Mayor Pam would not wait for a plan to be put in place. 
The City of Tampa cut down almost everything in the park. Or as the St. Pete Times put it, the City had “hacked down the trees” in March of 2006. The former urban oasis was reduced to an ugly, uninviting, uncomfortable mess.
BUT now - 18 months after City staff was ordered to murder Kiley Gardens, the site has been ignored. Nothing has changed. Nothing is on the schedule. The downtown riverfront park, next door to the new Malio’s Prime restaurant looks like a place lost in time.
Mayor Pam won’t even talk about the park. Oh - she’s got a big project planned alongside the place, although in her plans for the RiverWalk, the park is not specifically mentioned.
What a shame that someone in City Hall hasn’t seen what the rest of the world has seen - an internationally recognized work of outdoor landscape art. It is a moments like this that make me question whether Tampa really has what it takes to be a great city.
For more information or to get involved, visit the Friends of Kiley Gardens.
Tags: arts, city, diversity, downtown, tampa, tourism
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July 24th, 2007 at 11:17 am
Ah yes, the hatchet job goes down the memory hole. News media can revise history by conveniently neglecting to include unsavory but essential elements of the story. Will the The Times print a correction in their “Oops” section? Signs point to No.
July 24th, 2007 at 4:04 pm
I LOVE Kiley Gardens. Lord knows what nasty behemoth they’ll try to put there.
In the ‘new colors’ of tampa. Peach, tangerine, green, barf-green, barf-peach, the new color-coding. Maybe some of those barrel roof tiles, eh?
Yes, Tampa is out of step with the rest of the world.
No, Tampa does NOT and will NEVER have what it takes to be a great city!!!
Why??
One word:
GREED.
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July 25th, 2007 at 12:38 am
Vox is as chipper as ever I see
I remember when I was writing about this before and Linda Saul-Sena actualyl called me after I emailed her about it. Iorio doesn’t get why the park is important and the engineers who are trying to save the parking structure from falling apart aren’t interested in or don’t feel they can save it is the impression I got from her.
Maybe building it on top of a parking garage wasn’t a good idea. I love the place but now it is in need of a new vision I think. If the old park won’t work lets figure out something else.
July 27th, 2007 at 1:41 pm
A point that Friends of Kiley Gardens has repeatedly tried to make to the administration is that a garden WILL work technologically, it will be cost-effective, and it will be beautiful. If the City of Tampa would endorse National Registry status, funds could be found to rehabilitate and maintain the park in perpetuity. FOK has also tried assisting the city is doing any work on the park in a way that in 20 years we won’t be left with the same disaster of construction that we have now. Green roofs are used throughout the world, but they must be installed by someone who knows what they’re doing. Once more, funding is available for this without using City money.