Rice Park as Downtown's Winter Living Room
Surrounded by Landmark Center, the Ordway, the Saint Paul Hotel and the library, Rice Park becomes the city's winter gathering place as November turns cold.
Rice Park is less than a square block, yet for more than a century it has served as downtown Saint Paul's front parlor. Bounded by the Saint Paul Hotel, Landmark Center, Ordway Center and the downtown library, the park sits at the meeting point of the city's civic, cultural and hospitality life, and each season rearranges the furniture.
Late fall is when the park turns toward winter. The fountain and summer plantings give way to bare branches and early preparations for the holiday lights and tree that make Rice Park a winter gathering place, photographed as often as any scene in the city. Office workers cross it with coffee, theatergoers spill toward it before performances, and visitors use it as the natural starting point for a downtown walk.
The park's appeal is partly its company. Landmark Center, the former federal courthouse and post office built of pink granite, now houses cultural organizations and events. The Ordway brings music and theater a few steps away, and the Saint Paul Hotel has anchored the park's area since 1910. Few American downtowns keep so much of their ceremonial life within a single view.
As evenings come earlier in November, Rice Park rewards a slow pass at dusk. Lights come on, windows glow in the buildings around the square, and the city feels gathered rather than dispersed. Winter in Saint Paul can be isolating if you let it. Rice Park is one of the places designed, by long habit as much as by plan, to keep people coming downtown and meeting each other anyway.
