By: Xavier Cunningham
My name is Xavier Cunningham. I am a high school Dreamer from the Colorado I Have a Dream program and I have grown up watching Central Park develop as a community. I didn’t know about a lot of the great things in Central Park, yet I have learned many great and surprising discoveries; and hope to tell you about these unique places, through my eyes, in this blog series called “Did You Know?” Introducing the fifth story in this series.
Chorus
Chorus is made up of 19 of what looks like big orange bowls split up into random groups arranged in random formations around Westerly Creek Park. A lot of people find them interesting and follow the formations through the park, but most people don’t know what they are or what to do with them. They think the “bowls” are just random manmade contributions to the natural park. And they are partly right.
The “bowls”, or tree spade vessels, are manmade but they aren’t random. The vessels were made from earth castings by using a spade to dig a vessel shaped hole (much like holes dug to plant trees), coding the whole with reinforced cut (much like a swimming pool), and then pulling them out, forming these vessel shaped spades. The artist, Thomas Sayre, made them to represent the relationship between man and nature and to also complement Westerly Creek Park as a whole. How do the vessels relate to the park? Well, like the vessels, Westerly Creek Park is also mostly manmade. The creek used to be buried in runway cement before the airport was restored for the redevelopment. And not only was the Creek restored, it and the neighborhoods around it were specifically engineered to be a safe way to prevent floods from happening by making flood water flow away from the streets and into the Creek. These two aspects show how Central Park took what was left from the airport, restored it to a more natural state, and then used it to make the community better. Restoration is a keep that Central Park is known for.
The next time you visit Westerly Creek Park look at the vessels. Follow them through the park and think about how they represent the importance of the relationship between man nature, and the Central Park community.
Learn more about Central Park’s vast collection of parks and open space by viewing the new Parks Brochure.
