At any rate, I have stored up a real hoard of photos, experiences, and stories that I'll be doling out over the next couple of weeks. But for starters, I want to show you the new section of our famous Riverwalk, the older part of which (mostly constructed in the '30's by the WPA) looks a lot like the above picture.
Just a couple of weeks ago, though, they opened a whole new extension north of downtown, and it has, at least for now, a quite different, more open and less commercial, feel. It also involves an elevation change significant enough to require mechanical assistance if you're floating. Here is a photo taken at the locks by a helpful city employee (notice boats in the background, one of which we were able to see go through the lock).Incidentally, we walked rather than boated—at just a little over a mile, it was a nice stroll.
The idea behind this extension is to connect downtown with some near-town tourist attractions, and it does so quite nicely. Its name—"Museum Reach"—tells you one of the destinations, our San Antonio Museum of Art, seen here from the walkway on the other side of the river:
The current extension ends up at a rather exciting new commercial area that's just coming online, taking over the space originally occupied by the Pearl Brewery. We ended our walk there with a nice brunch and caffeinated refreshments at the Texas Farm to Table, one of the few establishments open there now. More seems to be on the way, however, and it should be a really interesting urban space.[Incidentally, the afore-pictured art museum lives where the Lone Star Brewery used to be....have San Antonians stopped drinking beer, replacing it with art and upscale food? Not hardly, but it's not brewed here anymore.]
Plans call for the Museum Reach eventually to extend upstream to the
Witte Museum, which is darned close to the spring that marks the origin of the river—can't go much farther than that and still call it a "riverwalk"!We were quite impressed with the quality of the walkway and its amenities, from frequent benches (and even public restrooms!) to interesting informational displays teaching us some local history with the exercise.
The neatest features, though, are the public art. The older sections of the Riverwalk have some mosaics like the one above on the right, and other items of interest and whimsy.
But the new section has gone all out in the public art department and come up with some experiences that are surely going to become signature highlights of the area. The most elaborate is the "grotto," which features a cave with a face/fountain within it (see at the left) and a collection of faux stalactites among the pools.Some of the stalactites sport shell decorations to boot, as you can see in the picture below:
Very imaginative!The prize, however, goes to the fabulous fishes suspended under the highway 281 bridge. They light up at night, which I'd really like to see sometime, but even just in their daytime colors they make quite a spectacle from the vantage point of the walkway.
In addition to lengthening this northward expansion of the Riverwalk, they've also started extending it south of downtown, in the direction of the missions, the earliest examples of public art in these parts. I'll have pictures from our touring down that way in posts to come. The rest of the summer promises to be a little on the 
5 comments:
wow, new sections of the riverwalk--i can't wait to check them out in person! and i'm pretty excited to hear the the pearl brewery complex is starting to come to life. seems like it's been many years in the revival process...
go san antone!
Wow, big happenings in little SA! Can't wait to come home and see them.
Where exactly is that section that goes under 281? If I recall from my Env. Geology fieldtrip, there's a flood control barrier very near there. I wonder how that fits in.
I can hardly wait to take y'all on a walk down the river!
The flood control place is very close to the 281 bridge. Don't know if it has anything to do with the new features or not. I had trouble getting oriented while walking upstream, since the river had sort of been hidden for most of that stretch prior to this new stuff opening. From the streets you really had to know where to look for it.
That's actually I-35, rather than 281, that crosses the river. Also under that bridge, in the section to the right (east) of the hanging fishes, is a fairly new bat roost. We need to go there at dusk sometime to watch the bats emerge.
I could have sworn I read somewhere that it's the 281 bridge?! Are you sure it's 35?
But I should have mentioned the bats. Although it's a much smaller colony than the one under the Congress Ave. bridge in Austin, so the flight might be a little disappointing in comparison.
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