2nd Alamo meeting crowd calmer
But some are still critical of biggest ideas
The second in a series of four meetings on a draft plan for Alamo Plaza drew a larger but more sedate crowd, but Tuesday’s participants also criticized the proposed street closures, demolitions — and any efforts to move the Cenotaph, which drew opposition from a councilman in attendance.
About 200 people filled the Hardberger Park Urban Ecology Center on the North Side — about one-fifth having also attended Monday’s meeting on the far West Side. There are two more meetings on the updated plan set for this week, and a second round is set for July, Assistant City Manager Lori Houston said.
“And if we have to do another round, we’ll do it again” before City Council takes action, possibly in the fall, she added.
Eric Kramer, principal with Reed-Hilderbrand Landscape Architects, explained how the design team envisioned reestablishing the Alamo as a place, not just a building, with lots of shade, and replicated features turning the mission and battle site into an open-air museum.
Although rails and plantings are envisioned to delineate the footprint of the 1836 battle compound, Kramer said the plaza would be open, walkable space.
The team is developing the interpretive design as part of an Alamo master plan that has been in development since 2014.
The design team has said the 1930 Cenotaph, a monument to the 189 known Alamo defenders killed in the battle, would be treated with dignity in a new spot about 500 feet south of its current location, providing a sense of arrival for visitors approaching along a promenade from the south. Moving the Cenotaph would make the plaza a more “active space” for interpretation and re-enactments, Houston said.
Some have said the location of the Cenotaph, dedicated in the plaza in 1940, seems historically arbitrary. But descendants have said there is no other place, besides its current spot in the center of the battle site, that is more suitable for the dramatic imagery captured in Pompeo Coppini’s sculpture, “The Spirit of Sacrifice.”
City Councilman John Courage, who joined Councilmen Manny Pelaez and Clayton Perry in welcoming the audience, said he is open to dialogue, but favors repairing the Cenotaph and returning it to its current spot.
“I personally believe that the Cenotaph was placed in a very special place in the middle of a battlefield where many people died,” Courage said, drawing applause.
He and the other councilmen urged everyone to try to stay calm about the future of a place that evokes strong passions.
“Let’s be respectful and keep our collective cool,” Perry said.
The San Antonio Conserva-
“If we have to do another round, we’ll do it again.” Lori Houston, assistant city manager
tion Society is circulating a petition “to save Alamo Plaza.” It opposes fences and glass railings; relocation or demolition of buildings; and closure of streets to traffic — a move the group says will cut off the plaza’s connectivity.
The conservation society, distributing the petition as hard copies and on its website, saconservation.org, began collecting signatures Monday afternoon, and had gathered more than 200 in the first 24 hours, said Susan Beavin, conservation society president.
“Alamo Plaza is not about barriers or creating a one-dimensional experience for tourists,” the petition says. “The plaza can be both dynamic and respectful of its long history as mission, fort, and civic hub — welcoming ALL.”
Beavin said the group was dismayed to learn that the draft plan, unlike renderings released last year with key concepts of the master plan, proposes possible demolition of up to five buildings.
“The petition is a way of getting their attention. We feel like they’re not willing to compromise,” she said.
Beavin said the group does not want the contentiousness attached to some of the plan’s components to delay structural repairs and restoration of the fragile, original limestone walls of the Alamo’s mission-era Long Barrack and church. The church’s crumbling, iconic facade was crafted by master masons of the Spanish colonial era.
This week’s remaining meetings are each set for 6:30 p.m. Tonight’s event will be at Embassy Suites San Antonio at Brooks, 7610 S. New Braunfels Ave.; Thursday’s at San Antonio Garden Center, 3310 N. New Braunfels Ave.