Got a name for the new parking garage? | From the Roundtable

We’ve got a contest going to come up with a name for the much-aligned parking garage at Sixth and Walnut. There are no prizes of course, just the chance to have some fun for a change about a structure that really has become the talk of the town.
Humor us with your suggestions. The favorite for the moment seems to be Garagzilla, but others are in the running as the list continues to grow. We could call it Garageola (sorry, that won’t work; sounds too much like the famous sports commentator and former Cardinals player). Or how about Garage Kong or how the beast who seized the Empire State Building came here to pick on a structure 1/14th as tall? Movie rights are pending. But wait, old video gamers might think we’re talking about an updated version of Donkey Kong.
You get the drift. Garagzilla has become one big municipal mess. No one really likes the Off Broadway Beast. There’s a chorus of complaints about its size, appearance, architecture, the shadows it has created, headroom restrictions on the top two levels and the garish lighting. It’s also being dissed by landlords who resent the city having commercial and office space for rent as a competitor when, in fact, some of them were madly gung-ho about it.
All humor aside, let’s turn to a very serious matter. Our Garagzilla, like the 86th floor open observation area of its New York relative has started to attract people intent on self destruction. After one successful suicide a number of weeks ago and two more recent attempts, one wonders how serious city officials are about controlling the risks both atop and out of the sides of their new enterprise. One hopes anyone bent on ending their life is sent to Columbia’s version of Bellevue Hospital, which cares for suicide attempts in New York City.

One can argue that anything tall is tempting. If someone wants to end his or her life, he or she will figure out a way to do it. The press usually ignores mentioning suicide as the cause of death unless it’s public in nature. Federal law requires gates around towers of all sorts, just as municipalities require barriers around swimming pools. Roof accesses to Columbia’s tallest buildings are restricted, so that leaves parties intent on plunging to opt for one of Columbia’s growing number of concrete parking structures.
Of course this will cost the city money at an address that is already a money pit, but something needs to be done. At the top, Columbia should replicate the scary looking assemblage of rods and forked metal pieces that guards the open observation level of King Kong’s favorite building. Then, a system of cross-hatched heavy gauge rods should be splayed across every open space to restrain anyone intent on using that venue as an exit to the street below.
Now back to the fun portion of this essay and another contest to turn our sow’s ear into a silk purse. Suggestions are encouraged, so let’s begin by formally naming our beast. So we call it Garagzilla, and as an outrageous variation on public art, all four sides at the top are graced by the huge, multihued neon letters G-A-R-A-G-Z-I-L-L-A that flash and wink to the crowds below.
After finding out how tall Garagzilla was going to be, I suggested to one city official that the city should install a mast to support communications antennas and, in another outrageous absurdity, top it with a beacon that flashed different colors to indicate the weather. You know how far that little bit of bombast went.
Garagzilla is, after all, a garage, and because it’s going to be in the hole for a while, how about opening it up on Sunday for one great big super duper garage sale? How about another farmers market now that those events are sprouting up everywhere? It’s shady up there with plenty of cross breezes, especially on the upper elevations to cool things off.
Garagzilla could become the venue of choice for one gorilla-sized garage sale and not incidentally a reassuring source of revenue for those of us who are nervous about the drain these parking structures may become to Columbia’s financial well-being.