Battelle Waterfront Park - Unconventional Uses of Places

Battelle Waterfront Park, one of the many parks that can be found scattered throughout the city of Columbus Ohio. Squished between the Sciotio River to the east and the cityscape of Columbus on the west. It's a strange one. There is a lack of elements that you would typically encounter in any park you visit. There are no large picnic areas, no playgrounds, and no athletic fields. The park doesn't have large swathes of grass or open space to play in either. Instead, it is a tourist destination (if a small one). The focal point is a replica of the Santa Maria, Christopher Columbus's ship. Elsewhere in the park sculptures and plaques speak to the history of the area. In the end it isn't a place a tourist would spend hours in. Perhaps take a tour of the boat and then enjoy the view looking out across the river before continuing on to other parts of the city. The park acts not as a destination for most of the people I observed there. Instead it is treated as a path, like the trails it connects to.

It is the shape of the park which encourages its use as a path. You could easily sprint across the width of Battelle Waterfront Park (if it were flat), at it's widest it cannot cover more than 200 meters. On the other hand, the park stretches for at least half a mile if not more. It is terminated by four lane automotive bridge on one end, and turns into a series of trails and walkways on the other. The layout of the park is also conducive to its use as a path. The basic layout consists of a series of concrete walkways split between two levels. The lower of the two borders the river. Tall (almost chest height) and thick beige railings with follow the length of it, broken occasionally by segments of cement. Everywhere but near the bridge the water is inaccessible to visitors. There is a small paved section below the walkway which runs directly into the river. It undoubtedly becomes submerged during the rainy season.

The upper level of walkways passes by an overlook some two stories high and continues on into the most heavily shaded section of the park. Under these trees you find several small iron sculptures and many little displays of thick cubes of glass, stacked in different geometric patterns. Two plaques, engraved in copper or bronze, rest on the wall facing out towards the river. The walkway continues on past a government building (undergoing repairs) and joins together with the lower walkway shortly afterward. It continues on for some time before becoming one of the trails that leads elsewhere into the city.

Back closer to the center of the park, just past the overlook, the Santa Maria replica is anchored. A touring information office floats just one hundred feet away, floating on drums, like the ones used in pontoon boats. The walkway here on the lower level is large, it could fit two cars side by side and still have room to spare. Along the side, towards the upper level, tall (tiered) concrete barriers hold in raised sections of grass. Further towards the trail end of the park there is a tiny spot with just four picnic benches and a couple of trees. The grass near here slopes up to meet the border of the upper walkway, separated by another segment of cement walls and railings. Hardly anything here, compared to most other parks.

It was a beautiful, but hot, summer day when I visited. No cloud cover, only a light breeze, and thankfully low humidity. All told a great day to be outside. It was remarkably quiet during the morning. Just the call of ducks as they swam by on the river and the loud quacks of several geese as they waddled along the grassy slope near the water. It wouldn't be long before the air was filled with conversations and the sounds of hundreds of shoes hitting the pavement. It was the second day of the American Rendezvous. A training event for the discipline known as Parkour. Four of the founders hailing from France joined together with instructors from Parkour Generations, the largest group in Britain, to teach the 150 people who traveled here to attend.

Now, let's put that on hold for a minute. The focus of this paper will be primarily on those 150 people and what they are doing in Battelle Waterfront Park. But first I should mention all the other groups which I saw. Over the course of the day the largest group (besides the 150) was the cyclists. They usually passed by on the lower walkway. Many were riding alone, though groups of two to three were also common. The biggest difference within this group was between the more casual and hardcore cyclists. The majority that I saw biking that day were wearing normal clothes and riding together with their family or friends. The more serious group was decked out in professional biking clothing were mostly riding alone or in pairs. The latter group just rode on through the park without slowing down, while the more casual cyclists seemed to take it slower. A few of them even stopped to look out over the water or see what the large group of people were up to. The other two major groups of note were the pedestrians and tourists. The demographics of the pedestrians was rather varied, though most were families with children. More often than not they would just walk through the park. Like the cyclists they did not stay in the park itself for long. The tourists were mostly school aged children with their parents coming to see the Santa Maria. Once they were finished with the tour of the ship they left the park and headed elsewhere. Twice during the day a dozen segways motored on by. They were also a tour group, and yet again they did not stop at all while traveling through the park. All of these groups besides the tourists almost solely used the park as a means to get elsewhere. One might wonder what purpose the park itself serves besides being a tourist destination to see the Santa Maria when so many people use it just to avoid traveling on city streets.

As mentioned previously the most prominent group here at the park was the 150 who showed up to train for Parkour. Briefly, Parkour consists of using one's own body to move through the environment in the most efficient way possible. Overcoming any obstacles that get in the way when traveling from point A to point B. Practioners of the art are called traceurs (or traceuse for women), and it will be the term I opt for for the rest of this paper. Most of the traceurs are younger, under 25, and male. There are about a dozen women and two older men, one in his fourties and another past his fifties. There are no kids training today, though some were brought along with their parents. It's a hot day, but despite the heat most of the traceurs are wearing long pants, mostly sweats or athletic pants. For the whole group it boils down to T-shirts and some sort of pants which they are comfortable working out in.

Strangely enough it is these traceurs, most who aren't local to Columbus, who make the most use of the park and its surroundings. They run along the thin concrete barriers, vault over railings, run up the walls, and do a multitude of other things across the entire park. The park seems small and rather boring to most people, but to a traceur this is a playground where you could spend months and still find new ways to move over and around it. Almost everything is used by at least one of the smaller groups that split off to explore the park. To a traceur this place is more than a path to get somewhere, it's an endless source of challenge and exploration. To them it is both their gym and their playground.

The unconventional use of space is what changes the purpose of the park from a path to a destination. It is interesting that a purpose the designers certainly didn't have in mind could become the best reason to visit this park. For most, this place doesn't offer much beyond a scenic path to other parts of the city. But for those people who look at all these barriers and objects not as things to avoid, but instead to surmount, the park itself becomes infinitely more interesting.