{"id":572,"date":"2011-09-06T12:17:50","date_gmt":"2011-09-06T18:17:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/?p=572"},"modified":"2011-09-06T18:28:55","modified_gmt":"2011-09-07T00:28:55","slug":"plaza-de-los-lagartos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/?p=572","title":{"rendered":"Plaza de los Lagartos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At the center of <a title=\"San Jacinto Plaza\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/San_Jacinto_Plaza\" target=\"_blank\">Jan Jacinto Plaza<\/a>\u00a0is a\u00a0<a title=\"Luis Jim\u00e9nez (sculptor)\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Luis_Jim%C3%A9nez_(sculptor)\">Luis Jim\u00e9nez<\/a>\u00a0sculpture titled &#8220;Plaza de los Lagartos.&#8221; \u00a0The piece pays homage to the parks unique history, once being the home to live\u00a0alligators.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps\/ms?msa=0&amp;msid=204600700021198483142.0004ac47345a53308a3b3&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=h&amp;vpsrc=0&amp;ll=31.759688,-106.488538&amp;spn=0.000926,0.001194&amp;output=embed\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<small>View <a style=\"color: #0000ff; text-align: left;\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps\/ms?msa=0&amp;msid=204600700021198483142.0004ac47345a53308a3b3&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=h&amp;vpsrc=0&amp;ll=31.759688,-106.488538&amp;spn=0.000926,0.001194&amp;source=embed\">San Jacinto Plaza<\/a> in a larger map<\/small><\/p>\n<p>The tale of the\u00a0alligators is a sad one. \u00a0Three were added to the park in the late 1800&#8217;s and were the main\u00a0attraction for decades. Unfortunately\u00a0they were frequently targeted by\u00a0vandals\u00a0until\u00a0they had to be permanently\u00a0removed\u00a0from the park. Their last\u00a0appearance in the park was in 1974.<\/p>\n<div class=\"mceTemp mceIEcenter\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<dl id=\"\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 343px;\">\n<dt class=\"wp-caption-dt\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/juanoxido\/6106549605\/in\/set-72157627453849331\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Retorno de los Lagartos\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6066\/6106549605_6c02e7e2f9.jpg\" alt=\"Retorno de los Lagartos\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/dt>\n<dd class=\"wp-caption-dd\">Retorno de los Lagartos<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<p>The sculpture was part of a mid 90&#8217;s attempt to revitalize the downtown area. \u00a0It\u00a0originally was more\u00a0kinetic, featuring water fountain and misting elements. Currently the fountain has been drained and the water features turned off. The ever present desert sun has faded the fiberglass sculpture quite a bit.<\/p>\n<div class=\"mceTemp mceIEcenter\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<dl id=\"\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 510px;\">\n<dt class=\"wp-caption-dt\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/juanoxido\/6107078538\/sizes\/m\/in\/set-72157627453849331\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Faded Glory\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6187\/6107078538_8b4fe42100.jpg\" alt=\"Faded Glory\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><\/dt>\n<dd class=\"wp-caption-dd\">Faded Glory<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<p>San Jacinto Plaza had served as the Sun Metro transportation hub for the Downtown area. \u00a0This lead to an abundance of people waiting\u00a0in the park for the bus as well as pan handlers and\u00a0vagrants who slept in the\u00a0grassy\u00a0areas. \u00a0To prevent that, the grassy areas were fenced off making the park not very park like.<\/p>\n<p>Recently Sun Metro has moved the hub and now the park is rather empty. \u00a0The revitalization bug has once again been\u00a0caught\u00a0by city council so to make the park more people\u00a0friendly, the city has removed the fencing surrounding the grassy areas.<\/p>\n<div class=\"mceTemp mceIEcenter\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<dl id=\"\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 510px;\">\n<dt class=\"wp-caption-dt\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/juanoxido\/6106659375\/in\/set-72157627453849331\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"That's more park like\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6210\/6106659375_aa73b48d4c.jpg\" alt=\"That's more park like\" width=\"500\" height=\"333\" \/><\/a><\/dt>\n<dd class=\"wp-caption-dd\">That&#8217;s more park like<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<p>Surprising that little change really opens up the park. \u00a0If I still worked downtown I would certainly eat my lunch here. \u00a0More changes may be afoot though as a polarizing plan to revitalize the park even further has been drawn up by an outside design firm. \u00a0One of the most\u00a0prominent changes was the removal of the sculpture from the park altogether: <a title=\"San Jacinto redesign\" href=\"http:\/\/www.elpasotexas.gov\/homepage_san_jacinto_feedback.asp\" target=\"_blank\">San Jacinto Redesign<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The\u00a0alligators now have their own Facebook page (<a title=\"Los Lagartos\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Los-Lagartos-Alligators-Sculpture-at-San-Jacinto-Plaza-El-Paso-Texas\/218832401488043?sk=wall\" target=\"_blank\">Los Lagartos<\/a>)\u00a0in protest to the redesign and others around the city have voiced concerns as well. \u00a0I agree that a redesign should include some elements from the parks past. \u00a0Jimenez&#8217;s sculpture could be refurbished and better\u00a0incorporated into a water feature\u00a0prominently drawing from the parks historical significance. \u00a0If removal is still in the cards, then one would hope that any reuse of the sculpture doesn&#8217;t wind up being an\u00a0affront\u00a0to the original artist intent.<\/p>\n<div class=\"mceTemp mceIEcenter\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<dl id=\"\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 510px;\">\n<dt class=\"wp-caption-dt\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/juanoxido\/6107235190\/in\/set-72157627453849331\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Old view from Mills and Oregon\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6083\/6107235190_63e66ace24.jpg\" alt=\"Old view from Mills and Oregon\" width=\"500\" height=\"362\" \/><\/a><\/dt>\n<dd class=\"wp-caption-dd\">Old view from Mills and Oregon<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<p>The city should follow the recent revitalizations of the Plaza Theater and the Mills building. \u00a0Both have been brought into this century while maintaining their heritage. \u00a0The Mills building even added back some nice architectural elliments that had been removed by the previous owners refurb in the 70&#8217;s:<\/p>\n<div class=\"mceTemp mceIEcenter\" style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<dl id=\"\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 343px;\">\n<dt class=\"wp-caption-dt\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/juanoxido\/6107179562\/in\/set-72157627453849331\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"Entrance to Mills\" src=\"http:\/\/farm7.static.flickr.com\/6208\/6107179562_be03c29c89.jpg\" alt=\"Entrance to Mills\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a><\/dt>\n<dd class=\"wp-caption-dd\">Entrance to Mills Building<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n<\/div>\n<p>That&#8217;s the one thing that El Paso really has going for it, architectural\u00a0history. \u00a0After being\u00a0largely\u00a0neglected\u00a0but left intact, we are finally waking with the desire to improve our downtown. \u00a0We should resist the attempts to go whole hog modern, we are never going to be &#8220;that city&#8221;. \u00a0 Lets move forward by better using what we have.<\/p>\n<p>A larger flicker\u00a0walk through\u00a0is here: <a title=\"San Jacinto Plaza\" href=\"http:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/juanoxido\/sets\/72157627453849331\/with\/6107179562\/\" target=\"_blank\">San Jacinto Plaza<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the center of Jan Jacinto Plaza\u00a0is a\u00a0Luis Jim\u00e9nez\u00a0sculpture titled &#8220;Plaza de los Lagartos.&#8221; \u00a0The piece pays homage to the parks unique history, once being the home to live\u00a0alligators. View San Jacinto Plaza in a larger map The tale of the\u00a0alligators is a sad one. \u00a0Three were added to the park in the late 1800&#8217;s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9],"tags":[10,91,90,89],"class_list":["post-572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography","tag-el-paso","tag-luis-jimenez","tag-plaza-de-los-lagartos","tag-san-jacinto-plaza"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1MdZY-9e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=572"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":575,"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions\/575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rust2.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}