(Pic: Gothamist)
Being intractable fogies, we tend to look a bit skeptically on events that involve flamboyantly “creative” uses of public space. That’s just a matter taste though. We were even kind of “meh” about the idea of hanging millions of dollars worth of orange fabric in NYC’s Cental Park a few years ago, and pretty much everyone else seemed to adore it.
But as these things go Park(ing) Day is not so bad. The idea, hatched in SF in 2005, is to claim parking spaces for a day and transform them into miniature parks. This is happening in 500 different places and ways across the country today. Mainly in big crowded liberal-leaning cities, but also in some more far-flung locales. There are even a few in what Sarah Palin called “Real America.”
Beneath all the flair, fortunately, there is a worthy point. To hark back to David Byrne’s Wall Street Journal op-ed about an imaginary perfect city, parking is “dead real estate.” It’s a practical necessity to have some quantity of it available, of course, but in denser cities, towns, and neighborhoods, it’s a less than ideal investment.
Anyway, here’s a small gallery of Park(ing) Day pics, mostly from today’s action across the country. We’ll try to duck out of the office for a few minutes and check out one near us, here in Manhattan. We don’t plan on frolicking on the sod patches or donning a funny hat, but we might take a picture or two and add them to this post, if there’s anything to look at. For more on Park(ing) Day and finding “parks” near you, go here.
A temporary park in Washington DC today. (Pic: NBC)
More pics after the jump.
One in Brooklyn. (Pic: Brownstoner)
LA knows parking (this picture from last year).
As one might expect, the idea has gotten some traction in San Fran (pic: SFist)
Nothing says “park” like a pyramid of bowling balls. (SFist)
Crazy, but they even do it in Dallas. (Pic)
September 18th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
The problem isn’t street parking. Street parking is often necessary and helpful to animate sidewalks and streetlife overall.
The problem in many places is that urban development is hamstrung by parking lots. Cheap, good cash flow, not going to be built up anytime soon. What someone should really do is rent out a parking lot for the day and put up temporary building facades along the street.
September 18th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Correct, and a worthy clarification.
September 18th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Bells, in what sense does street parking “animate sidewalks and streetlife overall,”? In any case, I do agree that urban development is hamstrung by parking lots, both those that are stand-alone and those that are part of a single business or strip mall. So much dead space, and this kind of auto-focused development doesn’t allow any of the business to face the street, leaving many cities’ main boulevards looking like a tunnel of walls! Yuck!
September 19th, 2009 at 1:51 am
Street parking works as a buffer so that people on the sidewalk aren’t getting blown around by traffic on the street.
September 19th, 2009 at 2:18 am
Bells, what youre proposing sounds a lot like this…
Portland Food Cart
Just about every surface parking lot in downtown Portland has these along their perimeter lining the sidewalk and has now turned the parking lots into the most active streetscapes in downtown. While these carts arent permanent, they also dont move from their location.
September 19th, 2009 at 9:49 am
I see street parking as dead space and certainly not helpful in animating sidewalks and street-life. If protection of pedestrians is important than trees and planters do a better job and are certainly more people friendly, attractive and healthier. On wider streets with bike lanes next to the sidewalk, parked cars are a cheaper means of providing protection against fast moving motorized vehicles. Street parking is a major cause of excessive cruising for parking and causes unnecessary traffic jams in the process.
September 21st, 2009 at 9:06 am
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September 21st, 2009 at 11:57 am
Alex,
Protecting pedestrians from traffic can be done more effectively and with far less space using bollards. The strange thing is that in New York, we use bollards to protect hard things like fire hydrants and pay phones, but never to protect people, made of flesh and bone.
Pictures and more information here:
http://www.streetsblog.org/2006/12/31/setting-the-agenda-on-pedestrian-safety/
Cheers,
–Ian
September 21st, 2009 at 11:59 am
As an aside, note that decorative bollards can inexpensively enhance the visual appearance of a community, as exampled in these photos:
http://www.infolink.com.au/c/Leda-Vannaclip/Leda-Vannaclip-s-Cairo-pre-cast-concrete-bollards-at-Supreme-Court-in-Perth-n812850
http://www.mapinconline.com/urban.html
September 21st, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Streets should not just be arterial routes to get cars from point A to point B. If that were true, all streets would be freeways. Street parking - and I would say, even temporary double parking - has its place in the modern city, and provides a crucial touchpoint between car and pedestrian, driver and walker. While it’s true it does create traffic due to cruising for spaces, I would argue that this form of traffic is healthy and locally relevant.
December 4th, 2009 at 5:50 pm
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