Taking Back The City Dept: Public Fountains
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 11.10.07
In many European cities, public fountains are important gathering places. In North America, we have private waterparks and our city's public spaces lack such gracious amenities.
Last year Brooklyn artist Charles Goldman built Public Fountain: "a self-contained, portable and solar powered fountain. It is designed to bring the gathering point -- that the traditional urban fountain often is -- into the city's more tangential zones." He then pushed it fifteen miles across town and like all fountains, people gathered. “Just turn that thing on and it's a magnet for people,” says Goldman.
::Charles Goldman via ::Pruned
From a local TV station at the time:
f art is about life, and life is journey, well, Brooklyn artist Charles Goldman just might have it all figured out.
“This piece is called ‘Public Fountain,’ and that's what it is,” he says.
Goldman made the solar powered mobile fountain for an exhibit in the Bronx, and then decided to transport it there by foot.
“It's pretty tiring, but I'm confident I'll make it,” he says.
And so Goldman and a revolving group of friends begin a two-day walk from his Carroll Gardens studio to the Wave Hill Cultural Center in Riverdale. With camera in hand, NY1 followed along on the 15-mile journey.::NY1
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People will gather around this?
That's a laugh.
And there are tons of public fountains in N. America.
There's even many in Houston. Like the reflecting pool and spray fountains at Hermann Park. The Water Wall near the Williams Tower in the Galleria. At Tranquility Park (in downtown) there's a ton of water features, and it's all free. There's tons out there.
So I don't get what you mean about the lack of water fountains and water features in N. America.
not many water features in san diego....4 that i can think of
1) fountian at balboa park
2) water sculpture at convention center
3) fountian in the business district (so wet and loud you can be near it)
4) pacific ocean
more fountians would be nice in SD....and we could use them to fight wildfires! ha! ;)
terry
Yes, I have to agree with the previous post. While I am a big fan of all things solar I guess I have found an exception. I have to ask, who would "gather around" that ugly thing? And note that the pictures don't show any people around it.
As far as fountains in cities, I guess the author of the post has never been to Chicago to see Buckingham Fountain.
Observe,
http://www.sogonow.com/archives/Buckingham-Fountain.jpg
And complete with actual gathered people. ;-)
I've been doing solar fountains for years and have seen that people will gather around a solar fountain. My friend Ambrose Spencer has also done solar fountains on a slightly larger scale. I think both of our fountains are nicer than Charles Goldman's but his design is more portable.
Ambrose's fountain is at http://solarray.blogspot.com/2006/06/solar-survival-show-solar-fountain.html
My solar fountain is at http://solarray.blogspot.com/2006/11/solar-fountain-at-farmers-market.html
Waste of solar cells..