San Antonio: The love flows at grand opening of the San Pedro Creek Culture Park

Texas Public Radio
By Jack Morgan
Published October 16, 2022 at 9:22 PM CDT

Phase I of San Antonio’s San Pedro Creek Culture Park is now open to the public after a grand opening ceremony on Friday and Saturday.

The project celebrates the creek and its waters that over time has changed dramatically, and more than once.

San Pedro Springs and the creek that flowed out of it were the origins of the city. But as Artist Kathy Sosa said, those life-giving waters also took lives away.

“After the big flood of 1921, this city started thinking seriously about what to do,” she said.

Sosa notes this city’s recurring problem with downtown flooding. That 1921 flood killed at least 80 people, and in its wake the city started the work to protect its downtown.

“They built the Olmos Dam on the North Side. Eventually, flood control took the form of constructing the creek into ugly drainage ditches,” Sosa said.

The San Pedro Creek was remade into a three-sided concrete ditch to route flood waters away. But all these years later, and given the successes of the remaking of the San Antonio River, the Museum Reach and the Mission Reach, the county turned its sights to the San Pedro Creek and proposed creating the San Pedro Creek Culture Park. A study was conducted to determine viability.

“That study came back in 2013. It showed that the great restoration would move 30 acres out of the flood zone. It would be four miles of trails, 60,000 feet of linear walls and 11 & 1/2 acres and landscaping and eight bridges and six pedestrian bridges,” said Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff. “After the completion of the engineering study, the Commissioners Court voted and put up 125 million to do this project.”

That wasn’t enough to complete the 2.2 mile project, so the city put up 20 million and 60 million in federal funds were also found. Its premise was all about flood control, but Wolff said its execution was about far more than just that.

“We wanted to tell the story of the history of our merging cultures through the use of color, words, murals, sculptures and tile design all up and down this creek,” Wolff said.

They broke ground in September of 2016. And six years later, the single longest phase is now open. What do San Antonians think of it?

“This is a fantastic concept. We're so proud of it. I hope everybody in the community can come out and see this,” said Robert Ramirez.

He hopes that the San Pedro Creek Culture Park will open the door to other West Side creek re-imaginings.

“This is a gift to the community. And we hope that the community can enjoy it," he said. "And certainly tourists are welcome. But this is really for us.”

Chris Castillo was there and described what he’d seen of the park thus far.

“There have been art installations, a lot of nice water features. Seems like it's built to last—high quality—like it's not going to fall apart in a few years,” Castillo said.

He also said that these kinds of public works projects pay many dividends to taxpayers.

“I do appreciate them putting money into infrastructure projects like this because the River Walk is one of those things that draws in a lot of people, and this seems like a section that would probably be used more by the people in this area,” he said.

His friend Marian Davalos works quite nearby, and said she’ll be using this new public space to unwind.

“A lot of people like need extra green spaces, open spaces where they can just relax in their free time,” Davalos said. “I think it's a great, great addition.”

Armando Gutierrez-Bravo was things unfold with his wife Katherine.

“It's just absolutely beautiful now. I can't even believe, this is the first time I've been downtown and walked this walk,” he said. “It's gorgeous. I really think they've done they outdid themselves.”

Former Poet Laureate Carmen Tafolla was there with friends.

“San Antonio is becoming better and better known as a center for public art and for making people feel good about who they are, where they come from, and really presenting a model for the world that it is possible for different ethnic groups and races to get along and to be part of American history that we are American history. I think that's really critical to recognize,” Tafolla said.

Kathy Sosa is one of the artists whose work helps define the new stretch. She and husband Lionel’s murals adorn the west-facing wall behind the Spanish Governor’s Palace just south of Commerce Street.

“These are five monumental murals all in a row between Commerce Street and Dolorosa Street,” she said. “And they picture five important episodes in the history of San Pedro Creek.”

Her husband Lionel worked with her on the murals.

“The murals that are finished in tile, they're 24 feet high by 28 feet long each,” he said.

Lionel Sosa says that the creek had an original basic function, but eventually became a line of demarcation.

“I think very few people know how important this creek has been to our city and how it became the original source of water for the city,” he said. “How it at one time became the dividing line between the West Side, the poor people and everybody else.”

Kathy Sosa said those 5 murals depict five specific events important to San Antonio, and specific to San Pedro Creek history. QR codes will soon allow smart phone users to hear from the figures pictured in the murals.

“So our hope is that people will come back and back to see them and see something different every time they return,” she said.

Hundreds of San Antonians gathered outside TPR studios for the ceremony, and Cristina Martinez said one art installation had her on the edge of her seat.

Brooklyn artist Adam Frank designed the 250-foot long lit-from-behind, interactive waterfall. He had a quirky litmus of success.

“What would my grandma think of this? You know, this is public art,” Frank said. “So I feel very responsible to every part of the public.”

He sat amongst the San Antonians as the big countdown to turning on the waterfall ended.

The crowd cheered the beautiful display. That waterfall stretches the length of Texas Public Radio, then another 125 or so feet almost to Commerce Street, defining the eastern edge of the plaza. A silver retro-looking microphone stands at the closest point to the creek. Frank said it’s actually a working microphone.

“And when you speak into this sculpture and when you make any sound, your sounds are visualized in the lights, in the falls,” he said.

Given that the gathering was quite loud, the falls were constantly changing color.

Art group Urban 15 played music, while dancers emerged from under Commerce Street bridge disguised as butterflies in lit-from-within costumes. Former Mayor Henry Cisneros was there and I asked him about the project’s nearly $300 million price tag. He quickly got philosophical.

“How do you put a value on the most attractive downtown in Texas? Safe. Primed for development, yet done with a view for human beings and the scale that human beings enjoy,” he said. “How do you put a value on that? You can only evaluate it at the end of a decade or several decades, and then that $300 million will be minuscule against the billion dollars of investment that it makes possible.”

Writer and local culture adjuster John Phillip Santos said San Pedro Creek’s story is a bit like the Phoenix rising.

“That is the underlying story, is that she lay underground for a hundred years and she has been returned to the light in our time and fused with this idea of using public space, city space as a tabula rasa for telling stories and convening that with the public,” Santos said.

Every bit of the public we spoke to on Friday night gave the San Pedro Creek Culture Park a glowing evaluation.

Jack Morgan / waterfall looking back toward Texas Public Radio