Speaking of Riverwalk, when you’re down around the Water Works Park area, you can’t help but notice the juxtaposition of what’s across from you. Before too long, it will be the revitalized, catalytic Julian B. Lane Riverfront Park. But there’s also the less-than-aesthetic presence of Howard W. Blake High School. It’s brick and functionally contemporary.
We are constantly reminded that while it was built on the Hillsborough River (in 1997), it faces North Boulevard. The back fronts the river.
Unless you’re nostalgic for the era of insensitivity to the Hillsborough, having a major structure turning its back on the river now seems a stupid affront. It is not only sans architectural elements, it’s also lacking windows.
How ironic that a magnet school for visual, communication and performing arts should be so starkly indifferent to the river that personifies our 21st century aspirations. It looks, inexplicably, like a maximum-security facility from the Riverwalk side.
A suggestion, if not a solution: murals.