Chris Riley prepares the next move for the giant chess at Wooldridge Square – TOWERS

Last weekend, a giant chess game was held in Wooldridge Square in Riley’s honour. Photo by James Rambin

Although he is often referred to as the founder of the urbanist movement in Austin, Chris Riley is really just a guy who believes in the potential of cities as places for people. As a former City Council member, co-founder of the Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association, and friend to everyone involved with this site since the beginning, Chris’s revelation that his cancer diagnosis last year had reached a terminal stage came as a shock to everyone in the downtown community – if you want to read about all that Riley has done for the city over the past 30 years, please read the wonderful career retrospective our friend Jack Craver posted last week.

Today I wrote about the grandfather of Austin urbanism, Chris Riley, who told me he has made peace with death because – among other things – he believes the future of his hometown is in good hands. https://t.co/rzr5j5Prh3

— Jack Craver (@JackCraver) July 8, 2024

Although he’s come to terms with the fact that his life is coming to an end, Riley still has unfinished business and asked us to tell you all about it. He’s lived downtown since 1990 and says one feature of his neighborhood has unfortunately remained the same – Wooldridge Square, one of Austin’s original public squares, still goes unappreciated. While Republic Square and Brush Square have enjoyed a renaissance in recent years, Wooldridge, surrounded mostly by government buildings and parking lots and located in an area of ​​downtown with fewer residential buildings and less foot traffic than other squares, remains an underdog.

Despite its historic legacy, which included the announcement of Lyndon Johnson’s 1948 Senate campaign and a 1911 Booker T. Washington speech attended by thousands after the famous black orator was blocked by the Texas legislature from speaking at the Capitol, the square has never really achieved sustained public activity—except, of course, for the Saturday afternoon giant chess game that Riley has hosted regularly under the square’s historic bandstand since 2002, with the help of volunteer chess enthusiasts and sponsored by the Austin Parks Foundation. Although he obviously likes chess, Riley says the giant game board was simply an eye-catching solution to get people excited about Wooldridge Square, an excuse to draw a crowd to the park so they could experience the potential of this downtown square for themselves.

An Austin American-Statesman photo of a 2005 giant chess tournament at Wooldridge Square. Image: Austin History Center

The original flyer advertising giant chess at Wooldridge Square in the early 2000s. Image: Austin Giant Chess

Now unable to host the event himself, Riley hopes to find a community member willing to carry on the tradition of giant chess at Wooldridge after he passes away. Since the event’s main goal is to activate forgotten urban spaces like the square, he’s worried that a more serious chess group will take over the organization and scare away casual players – the intention, he says, is to maintain a sense of community and identity in a corner of the inner city where that is often hard to find.

Photo by James Rambin

In honor of Riley and his decades of dedication to Austin’s civic life, we’re trying to help him spread the word. If you or someone you know would be willing to volunteer to help preserve the giant chess set in Wooldridge Square, please contact Davin Bjornaas, Community Initiatives Recreation Program Manager at the Austin Parks and Recreation Department, directly at [email protected].

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