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Old Man River’s City Revisited

Media Coverage of Old Man River

The media coverage of R. Buckminster Fuller and the Old Man River's City project started off optimisticly positive but as time went on and the project lost steam, it became more apparent that the project would not come to fruition.

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< The Design Pathway Interview with the Old Man River City Designers >

Contents of this path:

The Daily Alestle - Steve Yelvington - Fuller's plan for the Old Man River's City project is revealed. The article summarizes the initial meeting in which the city of East St. Louis was able to hear Fuller's proposal. "Fuller said that unless East St. Louisans would have priority for living in the city, he would have no part in it. Blacks and whites would live together there, he said, because he does not recognize races as such."
Metro East Journal -Gene Hogan- After Bucky's second presentation, the East St. Louis community had a "guarded acceptance" of the project. Fuller had prepared preliminary sketches at his own expense. " There is a lot of nonsense going on. Because of state laws man cannot live in buildings where he works so we have only typewriters sleeping in these fine buildings with all the wonderful plumbing and the worker living in the slums."- Fuller
Post Dispatch - Donald E Franklin describes the plight of people living in industrial cities like St. Louis, who often lack the means to escape "their environmental pollutions" due to lack of time and money. OMR could be the escape St. Louisans need. The way the city was being planned would omit pollution and the aggravation that accompanied it. It would "ease racial tensions, traffic jams, and crimes in the street and other urban offshoots." "Old Man RIver will show us the way to build harmonius, beautiful, and esthetically pleasing cities that people can live in." "The opportunity to improve our environment is presented in this project. All we need is the will to do it."-Wyvetter Younge
Metro East Journal-Timothy Middleton-Fuller discusses getting the project built and how he disuaded Wyvetter Younge from building the small scale model that was to be used as a community building. Instead he would like to spend the money on making a motion picture to explain the project in better detail. He urged East. St. Louisans to try to procure the land needed. The time may not yet be right, but the project will happen when it's meant to.

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Time Magazine Cover