Montgomery, Alabama

MONTGOMERY , ALABAMA to save what it could of the old department’s store façade, citing its historic value as the place where Rosa Parks had worked as a seamstress, and from where she left work on Dec. 1, 1955, to walk three blocks down to Court Square and wait at the bus stop before climbing aboard and refusing to give up her seat in the front of the bus, thus sparking the long, modern struggle for African-American civil rights. “So, that was a key,” Cortell remembers. “There were many moments where it would have been cheaper to take it all down and fill it in, but we planned ahead and carefully deconstructed that façade so that we could salvage all those tiles and glass blocks that aren’t made anymore. We were able to salvage a large percentage of those vitrolite tiles and 80 of 114 of the glass blocks. So, the new park is a free-standing façade with four tiers holding it up, three stories high, without touching the adjacent buildings. We kept the fabric of the urban pedestrian environment and ended up with this 1940s Art Deco façade, right next to an 1850s