For decades, Pynchon Plaza has not lived up to expectations.

A concrete courtyard featuring abstract sculpture and a fountain, the plaza was opened in 1976 to create a gateway between downtown and the Springfield Museums' Quadrangle, with an outdoor elevator and a stone staircase helping visitors navigate the 40-foot climb between Dwight and Chestnut Streets.

But it has been fenced off for much of the last 39 years, with the staircase dangerously steep, structural decay causing a safety hazard and the elevator non-functional, leaving the plaza not accessible to the disabled.

"I think there's a plaque on it that says 'a lasting design,' which I found humorous," said Springfield city planner Scott Hanson. "It's unknown to me how they ever got it built that way."

The lower level of the plaza has been open to the public since 2010, when a renovation cleaned up the site, added planting areas and temporarily reactivated the fountain -- though it is not currently operational.

But, thanks to students with the University of Massachusetts Amherst's landscape architecture program, a glimpse of a better future for Pynchon Plaza is visible.

At last month's Vision 2017 development presentation, Chief Development Officer Kevin Kennedy highlighted two proposals for the park, designed by UMass juniors Kevin Snow and Dylan Zingg as part of a seven-week studio course at the university.

Snow's design features a new building that would serve both as a museum and a conduit between street-levels; Zingg's, outdoor markets and winding pathways to make the climb less strenuous.

The designs are hypothetical in the extreme, emphasized Hanson, and have not yet been studied by the city. But they could start a conversation about a site that may become a lynchpin of the city's redevelopment, he said.

"The problem of a location like Pynchon Plaza is its been cut off and fenced off for so many years, people don't see it anymore," Hanson said. "All of a sudden people are talking about it."

For Springfield Mayor Dominic Sarno, the site needs more than talk. In an interview, he said that with the upcoming MGM Springfield Casino and Amazing World of Dr. Seuss Museum, the link between the Quadrangle and Downtown is ripe for re-opening.

"It's an opportune time to capitalize on this. Why not think big?" Sarno said. "There are a lot of eyes on us now."

A site of hope and disappointments

While Pynchon Plaza is now a problem, it was built as a solution.

It is currently a watchword for urban decay, but the plaza was once an expression of optimism and renewal, said Guy McLain, director of the Lyman and Merrie Wood Museum of Springfield History. The turn of the 20th century saw Springfield aspire to the aesthetic heights of the City Beautiful movement, an architectural ideal reflected in the National Mall and the landscaped centers of European cities. Proposals, never implemented, were made for a park that would have stretched from the Connecticut River to the Quadrangle.

Urban decline, spurred by suburbanization and the departure of major companies like Milton Bradley, hit Springfield's downtown after World War II, McClain said. And in 1976 Pynchon Plaza was opened, as a project linked to the country's Bicentennial and designed to spark renewal in Springfield's downtown.

"At first it seemed great. Everybody was very, very positive about it -- all the write-ups at that time, the reviews by various commenters and newspapers," McLain said. "It looked like a great idea."

But mechanical and social problems soon took their toll. Pieces from the plaza sculpture by renowned artist Isaac Witkin were stolen in 1977. The plaza's twists and corners gave it a reputation as a hiding spot for muggers. And the outdoor elevator to the Quadrangle was often out of service, making the climb inaccessible to the disabled.

"It became a great place for people to drink, drug exchanges, all kind of things," McLain said. "No one, in the initial stages, anticipated these kinds of problems."

The site's history is a disappointment and a reminder of its potential to Springfield Museums board member Evan Plotkin, head of the NAI Plotkin real estate firm. Plotkin spoke at the re-opening press conference in 2010, and said he witnessed the fountain fall back into disrepair after the 2011 tornado that devastated the city.

"The priorities changed, and rightly so," he said. "We had a major disaster that we were contending with."

But, Plotkin said, the the city should now find the money and political will to fully reopen the plaza, which he described as an essential connecting point between the Quadrangle, the Mass Mutual Center and the rest of downtown.

"We spend more money on consultants telling us what to do than we do on actually fixing stuff," Plotkin said. "That's what we need to do."

According to Sarno, the city has begun looking for private foundations to partner with the city in fixing up the plaza.

"Every year we had budget challenges, but we have a can-do attitude," Sarno said.

Fresh ideas

At the city's Vision 2017 development presentation, Chief Development Officer Kevin Kennedy showed a packed auditorium at CityStage a laundry list of possibilities for Springfield's future beyond the opening of the MGM Springfield casino. Among those were two designs for Pynchon Plaza by UMass juniors Dylan Zingg and Kevin Snow, created as part of a landscape architecture studio taught by Professor Jane Thurber.

The seven-week studio, completed in early march, is done in partnership with Springfield and is designed to give students experience with urban design in a city many of them are unfamiliar with, Thurber said. The university has stepped up its engagement with Springfield in recent years; the UMass-Amherst Design Center, opened in downtown Springfield in 2009, brings design and architecture students into the city to work.

"They really get a sense of the potential of Springfield," she said.

Snow, 22, envisioned a new museum building that would transform the plaza both into a destination and a way to connect the Quadrangle and downtown.

"I also thought tying it into the MGM [casino] that they're building -- if those two could somehow co-relate, whether it be similar architecture or the museum I proposed there, those two together could definitely do good things," Snow said.

Zingg, also 22, designed a gentler, sloping stair and rampway flanking park spaces that could be used as outdoor markets.

"It's really about making something that's welcoming from a lower street, where all the businesses are located," he said.

The designs were featured in the city's Vision 2017 presentation for their ambitious and dramatic approach to the site, Hanson said, noting that any redevelopment of Pynchon Plaza was still in its embryonic stages. But they could, he said, start a conversation.

"You have to put something out there that's going to grab somebody," Hanson said. "I think the students are very good at demonstrating why this connection is so important."