I couldn’t agree more. Table Rock is a wonderful place for a solitary reflection or a visiting friend. It should be in the public’s ownership and accessible. I have no problem is “they” want to make it a day-light only place, unless and until there is more use and more ability to patrol; although the vista during the night-time hours is equally breath-taking. It would be nice if it could be one during some designated after-sunlight hours. I’d love to see it preserved in a natural state, before any more of the ugly towers and cinder-block buildings go up.
Wouldn’t bother me, a lot, if the police wanted to move their shooting range there and use the cross, as a target, but I won’t suggest that, since I know how much the Guardian eschews controversy.

It just always amazes me when public land is closed to the public.
Who makes these rules?

Mr. Guardian – I’m all for expanding access to Table Rock – as long as they can figure out some way to keep non-Christians from using it! We don’t want pagans and heathens up there!

Of course I jest.

Any discussion about Table Rock MUST devolve into a debate about that horrible cross!

“Frustrated” opens up old wounds. And raises the obvious question… should someone be able to move into a community with long-established traditions and/or landmarks, and then declare how offended he is by those landmarks and traditions, and demand their removal?

My chosen religion doesn’t prominently display crosses, but as a lifelong (56 years) Boise resident, I’m totally comfortable with that cross up there… even as a young child, it oriented me. I like it! If my newly-arrived neighbor doesn’t, I’m sympathetic to a degree… but can’t you be neighborly enough to just look away if you find it so offensive, and let your neighbor enjoy it? Maybe “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”? (Jesus) Or if Jesus offends, “can’t we all just get along?” (Rodney King) Or, “Lighten up, Francis!”? (Sgt. Hulka, in “Stripes”)

EDITOR NOTE– As usual, the GUARDIAN has the solution: We can just issue “grandfather” rights to Jesus and his cross. Leave it there as a symbol of an ancient religion (more than 2010 years old) and not allow any more religious symbols to be erected on public land in the future.

Excellent write up Dave. This cause is near and dear to me and I’ll pledge right here and now to assist any way I can to help formalize some sort of reserve or park. I’ve spent quality time talking to others about it in the last decade and I’ve met a wall of obstinance from powerful people thinking its a waste of time. I’ve done some preliminary research and enlisted the aid of others in and out of government looking into this issue. One is Tyler Nelson, Morley’s son, who also wants to champion some preservation on behalf of his dad who used to take him up there to watch raptor behavior.

If Boise has a trademark, Tablerock is it, even without the cross. Frustrated, I share the sentiment since I’m a bright line person on the separation of church and state. Its easier for me being raised Christian to accept it, or at least overlook how it was established. And I actually think its kinda cool. I tend not to look on it as a religious symbol, one which ironically breaks a commandment, and tend to look it as a “T” for Tablerock.

I do think its imperative that if we are serious about following through on this, we gotta leave the divisive cross issue out of it and champion the cause with the notion of keeping the cross, maybe even advocating for it, in order to secure the support among right wing detractors. Dave, while not new, your suggestion in this post is brilliant and I hope it serves as a catalyst. Like I said I’m used to rolling rocks up hill, so I’m committed if you are.

Gee Frustrated, it must really suck to have something so offensive right in front of you for so many years. And they are all over the place as well! We call them LANDMARKS and we really kind of like them! When I look up and see that cross, I am sorry that I don’t see CHRISTIANITY blinking over the valley, I just see another landmark that makes this city unique.
The road to Table Rock was closed about three years after the last dozen or so, houses were built up there. Google who those houses belong to and then you will see why there will, very likely, never a park up there! Unless, of course, there is a road put up there from the east side. It is an idea that has floated in and out the valley many times. Unfortunately, it probably is one of those great opportunities that will never see the light of legislative day.

I agree with Sis – call the cross a “T”. Perhaps some volunteer group could make cleaning up Table Rock their project. As for railings – it has been without railings from the beginning of time. Has anyone been to the overlook of the Snake River above Swan Falls Dam? I would have to get on my belly and inch my way out to look down. Don’t see any railings there. Put up a sign that says “proceed at your own risk.”

The Table Rock cross is a done deal and is now irrelevant to this issue. The State clearly should not have sold the property (a small piece of land completely surrounded by state property sold to a private entity for the sole purpose of allowing the cross to remain), but it did, it wasn’t challenged at the time, it was unsuccessfully challenged in the 90’s, and now nothing more can be done. Moving on.

I took my kids up to Table Rock once a long time ago. Broken glass, used condoms, and other garbage everywhere. It was gross and dangerous. Assuming it’s in the same condition, “we” should be embarrassed to call it our city’s “landmark.” I see nothing cool about it.

KTA, you owe yourself a trip up there. The view is amazing! 30 years ago I attended a planning meeting with the city. Some “long haired” young planner testified that if you went up to Table Rock and looked over the valley, every thing you saw would be doubled by the year 2000. He was summarily dismissed as “nuts”! In hindsight, he was a very smart young man. It is sad that there is virtually no chance of that becoming a park.

“Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

Maybe we should pull down the Lincoln Memorial too, since the word “God” dares to be included in his speech…

Cyclops you hit the nail on the head. Some of the neighbors below would not let that happen and may be in an elected position to make sure it does not.

The gate is there due to the fact of damage to the radio sites after dark. I know, due to the fact I replaced equipment that was shot up, ect. Also the state only owns parts of TR. The southeast side is privately owned. My .02

Now THAT Shoogi, is funny!!