Many people familiar with Rochester's parks have heard of Frederick Law Olmsted. When the county planned to alter Seneca Park to make room for a parking lot a few years ago, community groups and neighbors fought back aggressively.

But another park has never received the same level of public concern.

Manhattan Square Park, a 5-acre downtown park, is the work of Lawrence Halprin, the only living landscape architect to receive the Presidential Medal of Arts. His works include Ghirardelli Square and Levi Plaza in San Francisco, Sea Ranch on the California coast, and a series of parks in Portland. But in its current state, Manhattan Square Park hardly looks like the work of one of the world's most important post-war landscape architects.

Halprin's Rochester work is at last getting some overdue attention. The city is about to enter the third phase of a $5 million restoration.

The park was envisioned as one element of the Southeast Loop urban renewal project, which razed a 60-acre neighborhood in the South Clinton-Court Street area. In the late 1960's and early 70's, the Urban Development Corporation planned to build 2,400 mixed-income housing units along with retail and entertainment sites. And in the center of it was Halprin's strongly urban park.

The Southeast Loop plan was "true, 1960's urban renewal," says JoAnn Beck, senior landscape architect for the city. "It was about large-scale demolitions and grand-scale projects, often at the expense of lower and middle-class neighborhoods. It was design that was imposed from above, usually involving eminent domain and frequently resulting in a loss of some historical properties."

"This was the era of the Loop, and everybody thought that was what was going to save Rochester," says Beck. "Many of the issues discussed then are still being discussed. Some we have worked through, and some we know we haven't."

Little of the Southeast Loop plan came to fruition, however, beyond Halprin's modernist vision for this urban setting.

Halprin designed Manhattan Square Park to be a room viewed from above and experienced at ground level. It was a multi-dimensional abstract of metal, earth, concrete, and water, a collage of sometimes contradictory angles and illusions.

A series of waterfalls once cascaded into a pool in an amphitheater. Steps descended from the street level, meeting the water. There was a towering metal spacewalk, which hovers over its theater-like setting. And on the southeast side of the park was a skating rink, which was in use until two years ago.

Almost as soon as the park was opened to the public in 1975, however, problems arose. While there is some debate over whether the pool was intended for wading, the city briefly hired a lifeguard and eventually shut off the waterfalls altogether out of liability concerns. But without the water, the park seemed to lose its allure. A restaurant and seasonal concerts also fell by the wayside, leaving the space a deserted eyesore.

"Everybody knew this park needed help for a long time, but it was hard to get your arms around it," says Beck. "The public's response to parks is usually an emotional one, but this park has had no constituents, no supporters. There has been more of a mental hole about it. And yet, here it is - a very important work."

Beck and city engineer Jim McIntosh see the park as the gateway to downtown. Beck and McIntosh say that after meeting with more than a dozen business and citizen groups - including the residents of the 10 Manhattan Square apartment building, which faces the park, and the East End Merchants Association - they were surprised to hear how much interest there was in renovating the park. The goal, Beck says, has been not to restore the park to its original design, but to renovate and enhance some of its best features: the waterfalls and the skating rink.

While they respect Halprin's original design, they say, some of its features may have contributed to its eventual deterioration. Some of the people Beck and McIntosh interviewed said the skating rink and the waterfalls were so far below ground level that activities were tucked out of sight. The new skating rink will brought up almost to ground level.

The park's design "is amazing, but you couldn't see it from the street level," says McIntosh. "If the city were more densely populated, it probably would have worked. But the berms blocked the views, and the more we've talked to people - some who pass it daily, didn't know the park even existed."

Work began on Manhattan Square Park's renovation in 2002, with the addition of a playground. That was not in Halprin's design, but Beck says it was a natural connection to the expanded Strong Museum of Play.

"We've paid close attention to the sight lines from different points in the park," she says. "We want people to be able to see this from East Avenue and, in this case, you can see the playground from inside the museum. It seems to flow right out of the museum's landscape, which is exactly what we want. We want families with children who may be spending time over there to come and relax over here, too."

The playground is brightly colored and includes slides and a geometric-shaped globe with ropes and bars for climbing and swinging. A small tower allows children to crawl to the top and through a tunnel. And the entire space has a protective padding instead of grass or gravel, to prevent injuries.

Construction on the ice skating rink, phase two of the project, is midway to completion. It will become a reflecting pool in the summer months.

The Zamboni house will be renovated and will get new equipment for creating and cleaning the ice. McIntosh expects the rink to be completed and back in operation by late fall.

Work is just beginning on phase three: restoration of the waterfalls.

"This time, the water will only be a few inches deep, so we expect to avoid some of the problems that the city encountered when they first opened the park," says Beck.

The spacewalk will reopen, and its theatrical lighting will be refurbished. The old restaurant quarters will be renovated to accommodate a small café-style eatery that may be operated only during musical events. And those events will return to the park once work is completed in 2008.

"Manhattan Square Park and Halprin's work are part of Rochester's landscape legacy," says Charles Birnbaum, president of the Cultural Landscape Foundation in Washington, DC. "Halprin described this design as working with the fourth dimension. You have the vertical view from the parameters, the view looking down from the space frame, and then when you are actually at ground level, it feels like you are floating. That experience was what he meant by ‘the fourth dimension.' The entire project is like a bookend for Rochester, with Olmsted on one side and Halprin on the other."