We once again found ourselves in delightful downtown Kalamazoo, Michigan with some time on our hands and some sturdy shoes on our feet, so we took off on a walking tour of the celebrated Celery City.
We had, after all, visited the Discover Kalamazoo website at www.discoverkalamazoo.com and thus learned that “even a simple stroll through Kalamazoo can be a glimpse into our past and the promise of our future.”
Our friends at Discover Kalamazoo assured us that “several commercial and public buildings in downtown Kalamazoo, including City Hall, possess the crisp geometry and surface ornaments of Art Deco-an eclectic design style born during the Jazz Age. Residential architecture ranges from the Prairie Style of Frank Lloyd Wright to ornate Victorian mansions in our charming neighborhoods.”
Having parked in just such a charming neighborhood on South Street just west of the always-interesting Kalamazoo Institute of Arts, we began our simple stroll with an immediate appreciation of the 19th Century houses that occupy that sylvan historic district.
Then, of course, we admired the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts (KIA) at 314 South Park Street, both inside and out. And we encourage you to do the same any month of the year and to consult their website at www.kiarts.org for what’s showing there. Oh, and we could not help but notice KIA’s next-door neighbor, the beautifully restored Kalamazoo House Bed & Breakfast at 447 West South Street. The carefully restored 1878 Victorian is as fine an example of 19th century residential architecture as one can find in Kalamazoo.
We continued east to Bronson Park, which has been a New England-style commons in the center of Kalamazoo since the 1850s. The rectangular park was home the day we crossed it to some folks with a guitar and good voices. We also discovered that an attorney named Abraham Lincoln spoke in the park in 1856 on behalf of presidential candidate John Fremont. And, in later years, Stephen A. Douglas, William Jennings Bryan, Theodore Roosevelt, and both John and Robert Kennedy spoke in the park.
But the best part of our crossing Bronson Park was the fact that the fountain was still spraying water. Fountains, we discovered, have decorated the park since 1879, and one of them, “The Fountain of the Pioneers,” is controversial because it symbolizes the removal of the Native Americans from the local area by the federal government.
We always learn something new every time we take a hike around downtown Kalamazoo, and our recent stroll was no exception.
So on we went heading east on South Street, admiring as we went the aforementioned Kalamazoo City Hall, which was built in 1931 in the midst of the Great Depression, and our perennial favorite, the Kalamazoo Public Library at 315 S. Rose Street. The original library structure was built in 1955, but a 1998 renovation preserved the original building’s physical form by sheathing the building with materials of varying colors and textures. The Kalamazoo Public Library demands a story of its very own, and you shall have one over the coming winter.
Meanwhile, our busy little feet took us on along the Kalamazoo Mall from Lovell Street on the south to Eleanor Street on the north. We thus discovered that in 1959 the City of Kalamazoo created the nation’s first downtown pedestrian mall by blocking off traffic for three blocks. The city hoped the mall would lure shoppers and businesses back from the suburban malls, and their hopes were partially realized. We were pleased to see that the mall now features many specialty shops, cafes, and restaurants, and we applauded the city’s decision in 2000 to reopen the mall to limited automobile traffic. Shades of Michigan City, right?
And like Michigan City, Kalamazoo is definitely on the rebound, and we certainly saw ample evidence of that as we continued walking toward Michigan Avenue. And it was at 100 West Michigan Avenue where we saw one of the best symbols of downtown Kalamazoo’s resurgence: the Radisson Plaza Hotel at Kalamazoo Center. Say what you will about the architecture, but you certainly have to say that it is a bold statement for a city that once was the butt of many a joke about the dying downtowns of the Midwest.
Kalamazoo is back big-time, and the best way in which to see that for yourself is to drive over for the day or to check into the Radisson or Kalamazoo House or other fine lodgings for a weekend in the celebrated Celery City. The folks at Discover Kalamazoo are fond of saying: “Kalamazoo. You’ll be back, we promise.”
We have been back more times than we can count, and we lost count of all the many footsteps we took the other day delighting ourselves in yet another self-guided foot tour of our favorite day-trip destination.
To book your own foot tour of Kalamazoo, please contact Discover Kalamazoo in care of: 1-800-888-0509 or on-line at: www.discoverkalamazoo.com. You can contact the Kalamazoo House Bed & Breakfast at 1-866-310-0880 and the Radisson Plaza Hotel at: 1-800-967-9033.
May we meet afoot in Kalamazoo!