Years after bollards discussion halted, advocates turn to ‘sidewalk art’

WASHINGTON — The city of Washington plans to consider one business owner’s proposal to install public sidewalk art aimed at preventing collisions between cars and buildings.

Northside Diner Owner Isabella Santoro said a pair of lion statues would spruce up the sidewalk in front of the restaurant but, more importantly, would protect it from collisions if any vehicles jumped the curb and hit a building.

Three such collisions in recent memory have struck Cafe Dodici or Dodici's Shop, two businesses owned by Santoro’s family. In one case, the damage was limited by a car hitting a public bench in front of the restaurant, stopping it from barreling into the building. In another, the car crashed more or less harmlessly into a corner on the back of the building. And in 2022, one vehicle smashed through the front entryway of the cafe on a Friday morning.

Santoro started a push to install bollards downtown in 2024, but the effort didn’t go far. Others worried the devices would limit access to buildings, or be an eyesore on the historic downtown, or cost too much to install.

  Buy Photo

“There were too many people vocally against it, they didn’t want to come up with a cohesive plan for the square, they didn’t want to pay for it, they didn’t want to do it,” she said. “The takeaway was, ‘You want to do something to protect your buildings, all the power to you. You come up with what you want to do, you bring it to city council, they’ll probably say go ahead.’”

Northside Diner has opened in the years since. Last week, Santoro asked council members for permission to install a pair of statues — 500 lbs. each — in front of the business.

While the art pieces likely wouldn’t be as effective as specifically built bollards, Santoro argued they’d be effective enough to protect her restaurant from major damage.

“Past events have already proven that properly anchored barriers prevent cars from mounting the sidewalk and protect both people and property,” she wrote in a letter to the council.

The city did not offer an immediate yes or no to the request. Instead, officials plan to appoint a committee that will draft up guidelines for downtown businesses hoping to install their own protective sidewalk art, regulating their spacing, designs and potentially other factors.

“When you look at what Isabella has proposed, it’s definitely not a bland bollard,” City Administrator Joe Gaa said. “But it also needs to be something that has standards that could be repeated throughout the entire square, and I think it’d end up being something kind of cool.”

In an interview after the meeting, Santoro said she primarily hoped to protect her own building, but wasn’t opposed to the city making uniform standards for sidewalk art in general.

“I’d love to protect everybody, I don’t just walk in front of my businesses, but I’m kind of following their guidance, worrying about me first,” she said. “And if others want to follow suit and put up artwork of their own, I think that would be a great outcome.”

The Iowa DOT has records of 38 crashes in Washington’s square since 2015. Of those, five involved vehicles hitting “fixed objects” like buildings, walls, signs or street lights. Notably, the data does not seem to include the 2022 crash at Dodici’s coffee among its “fixed object” crashes.

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com