The City: Filling the Doughnut

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Tenets, Anyone? Gruen is delighted with the results, and he vocalizes his joy with a characteristic prolixity that is as endless as one of his own escalators. "I have no illusions that this is now the new downtown," he says, "but even if this is only a piece, not the whole, it will demonstrate the three main tenets of my planning philosophy for downtown." First, "the separation of utilitarian func tions from human functions," i.e., truck and service traffic are separated from other traffic by use of the underground truck roads and the underground garage. Second, "the ideal city should fulfill the needs of variety and diversity." Midtown intermingles old and new buildings, tall ones and squat ones, and there is space for a post office, playground and a new auditorium. Third, there must be "improved environmental quality," by which he means the air-conditioned 20th century town square, complete with its fountain and sculptures.

Finally, the new center's success may encourage similar activity in other sectors of downtown Rochester, creating a chain reaction that will bring a new vitality into the whole of the city's life.