{"id":3046,"date":"2008-04-23T14:14:30","date_gmt":"2008-04-23T19:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spacingtoronto.ca\/2008\/04\/23\/road-trip-charming-iowa-city\/"},"modified":"2013-01-21T15:08:33","modified_gmt":"2013-01-21T20:08:33","slug":"road-trip-charming-iowa-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/04\/23\/road-trip-charming-iowa-city\/","title":{"rendered":"ROAD TRIP: charming Iowa City"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

IOWA CITY, IOWA<\/strong> — The last city I stopped to see on my trip, before gunning the car to get home to Toronto, was the university town of Iowa City<\/a> in the southeastern part of the state of Iowa. It only has 60,000 residents, but since its populated with thousands upon thousands of students (a third of the city’s population) from all around the country, its doesn’t fit into the small-town Midwest stereotype.<\/p>\n

Iowa City is home to the University of Iowa which plays a central role in the town. It sits just to the east of the downtown core. Since Iowa City was once the capital of the state, it has a large capitol building that has been surrounded by the campus. So its no surprise to see that the downtown caters to the culture of student life. There are numerous poster kiosks, lots of cafés, and a pedestrian mall that is about five square blocks.<\/p>\n

While the downtown does a nice job with its streetscape, keeping it super clean while playing on its colonial roots, I was slightly surprised by the existence of some excellent graffiti and poster art. The following are some photos of the city’s streets and laneways.<\/p>\n


\n<\/p>\n

The pedestrian mall was a little dead since a constant drizzle hung over the town while I was there. The most frequent peice of street furniture I found were benches. Benches, benches, benches. Iowa City seems to hav e asimilar climate to Toronto, so the trees were just starting to bud. Here’s a link<\/a> to what it looks like in full bloom.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I really dug the covered seating area — makes for a good place to hide out when the rain hits or the sun is too intense.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Info pillars that show the campus and downtown area.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Another info pillar that highlights community news, distributes newspapers, and provides a local map.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A poster kiosk.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As you can see, the poster kiosk, as well as the info pillars, mimick the city’s capitol building. It’s a nice touch to see a local design element reflected in the street furniture — its gives the city a unqiue feel at street level.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This street-side ashtray was something I hadn’t seen before. At first I thought it was a bike rack.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Bike racks were everywhere in town, and even the parking meters were equipped with racks.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I really liked the neighbourhood markers on the street signs. The above image is for the Husi Mesto area. I saw about five different markers with different designs.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Back on the pedestrian mall, I found a few bronze sculptures that wrre related to specific events and places in Iowa City.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Embedded in the sidewalks were numerous designs referencing different forms of literature produced by famous Iowan writers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the laneways that abutted the pedestrian mall I found numerous stencil graffiti. It was nice to see the the rougher edges of the city hiding behind the the prim-and-proper feel of the downtown.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There also seemed to be a poster artist who liked placing his face in the middle of iconic imagery.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This newsbox was empty of any contents, but again it was nice to see a dose of intervention art beside the fully sanctioned street furniture.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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It only has 60,000 residents, but since its populated with thousands upon thousands of students (aContinue reading “ROAD TRIP: charming Iowa City”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1022,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21759,32],"tags":[2870,8768,8794,21,1249,60,8795,19,8796],"class_list":["post-3046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-features","category-streetscape","tag-iowa","tag-iowa-city","tag-midwest","tag-other-cities","tag-poster-artist","tag-road-trip","tag-the-university-of-iowa","tag-toronto","tag-university-of-iowa"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nROAD TRIP: charming Iowa City - Spacing Toronto<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/spacing.ca\/toronto\/2008\/04\/23\/road-trip-charming-iowa-city\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"ROAD TRIP: charming Iowa City - Spacing Toronto\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"IOWA CITY, IOWA — The last city I stopped to see on my trip, before gunning the car to get home to Toronto, was the university town of Iowa City in the southeastern part of the state of Iowa. 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