Grand Rapids has always been a city where private money and public life blur at the edges. Louis Campau bought 72 acres from the federal government for $90 and called it Grand Rapids. That instinct — one person's decision reshaping common ground — runs forward through every era. In 1969, Alexander Calder's *La Grande Vitesse* became the first public artwork in the country funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, installed downtown. Amway co-founder Jay Van Andel later funded the renovation of the Pantlind Hotel and the construction of the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel tower. Meijer Inc. donated 70.7 acres earmarked for a superstore; what opened there in 1995 was a botanical garden and sculpture park holding Moore, Rodin, and Akamu. The pattern is consistent: resources that could have stayed private became the bones of a shared city.
