You are here

Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast » South Texas » Corpus Christi (Nueces County) » Central Corpus Christi » The Broadway Bluffs Improvements

The Broadway Bluffs Improvements

-A A +A
1914–1918, Alexander Potter. Bounded by Lower and Upper Broadway, I-37, and Mesquite St.
  • Queen of the Sea (Photograph by Gerald Moorhead)

The bluff, the singular, defining landmark in Corpus Christi, divides the central core of the city, literally and vertically, into uptown and downtown. Located four blocks west of the waterfront, the forty-foot-high bluff was enhanced in 1913 as part of a general civic infrastructure improvements program championed by then–newly elected mayor Roy Miller to signal Corpus Christi as the emerging city of the Gulf Coast.

Linked to other enhancements that included street paving, lighting, water mains, and the construction of a new courthouse ( CC9), the Broadway Bluffs improvements were designed by Potter, an internationally acclaimed park designer and civil engineer from New York City who was closely identified with the City Beautiful movement. Extending for six blocks, the improvements comprise segmental-arched retaining walls with a sloped, landscaped area traversed by sets of balustraded stairways connecting pedestrians to uptown and downtown. Two city thoroughfares, Upper and Lower Broadway, parallel the bluff and are, in turn, also connected to each other via vehicular ramps diagonally laid out along the slope.

Envisioned as a work of civic beauty, the project was embellished with a semicircular bas-relief sculpture and fountain, Queen of the Sea, by Italian immigrant sculptor Pompeo Luigi Coppini, who settled in San Antonio.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Gerald Moorhead et al.
×

Data

What's Nearby

Old Nueces County Courthouse
Missouri Pacific Railroad Depot
Old Bayview Cemetery
Southern Minerals Company Building
Artesian Park

Citation

Gerald Moorhead et al., "The Broadway Bluffs Improvements", [Corpus Christi, Texas], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/TX-01-CC1.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Texas

Buildings of Texas: Central, South, and Gulf Coast, Gerald Moorhead and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2013, 235-236.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,