San Antonio Riverwalk night vibes | Stay at Hampton Inn & Suits скачать в хорошем качестве

San Antonio Riverwalk night vibes | Stay at Hampton Inn & Suits

The San Antonio River Walk is a city park and special-case pedestrian street in San Antonio, Texas, one level down from the automobile street. The River Walk winds and loops under bridges as two parallel sidewalks lined with restaurants and shops, connecting the major tourist draws such as the Shops at Rivercenter, the Arneson River Theatre, Marriage Island, La Villita, HemisFair Park, the Tower Life Building, the San Antonio Museum of Art, the Pearl, and the city's five Spanish colonial missions, which have been named a World Heritage Site, which includes the Alamo. During the annual springtime Fiesta San Antonio, the River Parade features flowery floats that float down the river. The area within the circumference of the River Walk is the heart of the original 1700s Villa de Bejar outpost, which would eventually become the City of San Antonio. In September 1921, a disastrous flood along the San Antonio River took 51 lives, with an additional 23 people reported missing.[1] Plans were then developed for flood control of the river. Among the plans was to build an upstream dam (Olmos Dam)[2] and bypass a prominent bend of the river in the Downtown area (between present day Houston Street and Villita Parkway), then to pave over the bend, and create a storm sewer. Work began on the Olmos Dam and bypass channel in 1926; however, the San Antonio Conservation Society successfully protested the paved sewer option. No major plans came into play until 1929, when San Antonio native and architect Robert Hugman submitted his plans for what would become the River Walk. Although many have been involved in development of the site, the leadership of former mayor Jack White was instrumental in passage of a bond issue that raised funds to empower the 1938 "San Antonio River Beautification Project", which began the evolution of the site into the present 2.5-mile-long (4 km) River Walk. Hugman endorsed the bypass channel idea (which would be completed later that year) but, instead of paving over the bend, Hugman suggested 1) a flood gate at the northern (upstream) end of the bend; 2) a small dam at the southern (downstream) end of the bend; and 3) a Tainter gate in the channel to regulate flow. The bend would then be surrounded by commercial development, which he titled "The Shops of Aragon and Romula". Hugman went as far as to maintain his architect's office along the bend. Hugman's plan was initially not well-received – the area was noted for being dangerous. At one point, it was declared off-limits to military personnel. People were warned of the threat of being "drowned like a rat" should the river flood. However, over the next decade support for commercial development of the river bend grew, and crucial funding came in 1939 under the Works Progress Administration (WPA) which resulted in the initial construction of a network of some 17,000 feet (5,200 m) of walkways, about twenty bridges, and extensive plantings including some of the bald cypress (others are several hundred years old) whose branches stretch up to ten stories and are visible from street level. Hugman's persistence paid off; he was named project architect. His plan would be put to the test in 1946, when another major flood threatened Downtown San Antonio, but the Olmos Dam and bypass channel minimized the area damage. Casa Rio, a landmark River Walk restaurant, became the first restaurant in the area in 1946, opening next door to Hugman's office. Through the following decades the network has been improved and extended. The first major extension of the Riverwalk was constructed by the joint venture of two general contractors Darragh & Lyda Inc. and H. A. Lott Inc. to Tower of the Americas as part of HemisFair '68. The expansion extended the Riverwalk beyond its natural banks at the horseshoe bend to the new convention center and theater by excavating much of the block bordered by Commerce, Bowie, Market and Alamo Streets. That was also the year the Hilton Palacio del Rio was built, the first of many downtown hotels that leverage their slice of urban "riverfront." A subsequent major expansion opened in 1988 that extended a branch from the 1968 extension to create a lagoon at the new Rivercenter Mall and the Marriott Rivercenter Hotel. In 1981 the Hyatt Regency San Antonio opened with a new pedestrian connector that linked Alamo Plaza to the River Walk with concrete waterfalls, waterways and indigenous landscaping. Known as the Paseo del Alamo, this river "extension" actually flows from Alamo Plaza into the San Antonio River through the atrium of the hotel. This connector not only allows the hotel to market itself as being on Alamo Plaza and on the River Walk, but it provides the city with an urban park that connects the city's two largest tourist attractions. Many downtown buildings like the Casino Club Building have street entrances and separate river entrances one level below.