Park(ing) Day NYC 2008

Peering past the protective barriers rimming our 3 spaces-long Seventh Haven Park on the west side of 7^th Avenue between 24^th and 25^th in Manhattan on September 19^th, we were the power of demonstration.

At Seventh Haven, neighbors, friends, shopkeepers, grocery store employees, and students became park designer/planners for the day. The street’s generosity was lent for the project, too, demonstrating how malleable it is when the spirit of its engineers prioritize people over automobile speed. Motorists and passersby were wooed by our street possibilities transformation, and inquired with amusement or amazement throughout the day, or else just joined us, choosing to embody the power of demonstration on their own.

Sure Park(ing) Day is whimsical, small scale, and impermanent, but it is also a forceful reappropriation, and for this, people love it; it is empowering!

The need for more green, people-scaled places in which to linger works its way into park(ers) lungs, ears, voices on Park(ing) Day; there’s nothing like high-speed traffic whizzing past an unprotected park(ing) space to underscore traffic’s incompatibility with rich social spaces. But lucky park(ers)! We enjoy the thrill of urban life lived ahead of the curve, nudging the automobile to slow down or stay off the road entirely, by together absorbing the risks of our preferred street vision in the making. And with such a demonstration, we invite neighbors and strangers to do likewise, and imagine post-automobile possibilities!

What could be more powerful?

#3—Design Constraints, part deux

Probably no one needs convincing about the design constraints involved in remaking a streetside parking space into a Park(ing) place. But to highlight a few:
• Impossibly small size, especially in comparison with the remaining road space;
• Asphalt as hot as the late summer sun beating down on its heat-absorbing surface;
• Automobile traffic whizzes or crawls, exhaust-spewing, at uncomfortable proximity.

But consider how these constraints become opportunities:
• Small spaces can be filled with BIG things; a park is socially expansive—it attracts people who might then sit and do a crossword puzzle, eat lunch, or meet their neighbors and make plans to attend the next community board meeting together to advocate for more permanent parks!
• How many ways can one make shade on an asphalt island? Umbrellas? Market tents? Ficus trees borrowed from a sidewalk-fronting Italian restaurant? Rusted out, removed car doors sticking out of planter boxes, as clipped wings from a DeLorean? The possibilities can make as big a statement as the space is small…
• As a stationary space for people, your park sits in stark contrast to the pace and purpose of automobile traffic it abuts on one side and the sidewalk movement passing it on the other. Work this “gap” to remind motorists of their impact on your park (isolation masks? Over-sized traffic barriers?) and to simultaneously woo pedestrians in (isolation mask decorating? Live music? Gymnastic equipment? Cold drinks? A bench on which to enjoy their lunch where the previous day there wasn’t any?)

Point is, Park(ing) Day is about possibility. It’s about making a lot out of a little—whether motorist education or pedestrian refuge offering. Think about your park(ing) space and how its smallness and ill-suitedness might become its most valuable assets for demonstrating to both speeding and plodding passersby the higher uses to which a park(ing) space might be dedicated…

#2—Design Constraints, Part 1

The most satisfying, interesting creations spring from constraint. Time, money, materials, space, energy, and people shortages are always lurking somewhere behind brilliant works of art. Such constraints become an important part of the artistic process, and lead to innovation, or design “solutions” that artists summon out of the unique availabilities of the moment. The resulting works are expressions of their makers’ “read” on possibility and constraint in a specific place, and a particular moment.

“So what,” you ask, “in park(ing)’s name has this philosophical drivel got to do with Park(ing) Day?”

Well, consider the limitations of a busy New York City avenue, a la 2008, from the perspective of a park-seeker. Cars, buses, and taxis swarm (or languish and generate lots of Co2) over sticky asphalt, shuttling busy people and the goods and services they require, between buildings. “Rest areas,” otherwise known as “parking spaces” are reserved for motorized vehicles in between trips, but where can the people go to rest in between trips? Must we always spring for a latte or a beer to get some relief?

Don’t those shuttling vehicles exist to serve US? When did we agree to give them so much of OUR space?

So, what if we re-read a portion of the sea of on-street parking spaces lining city avenues and streets as places of rest, meeting, reflection, and play? What if we see the constraints of an automobile-fashioned streetscape as wide and narrow ribbons of possibility for us and our neighbors? What sorts of tiny park interventions—little design solutions—would make our neighborhoods incrementally nicer places to lay over between the bustle? Forget Central Park and Prospect Park—those grand-scaled public works have been done! Think instead on the scale of pockets and tiny oases…what can we conjure out of such liberating smallness? This is what Park(ing) Day is about.

Over the next month and a half, I’ll post a series of short entries that deal with some of the most exciting reasons to grab some friends and neighbors and transform a parking space into a PARK on Park(ing) Day 2008, Friday September 19. It’s easy! and meaningful, and powerful. Read on!

Reason #1 to redeem a PARKING SPACE with a PARK on PARK(ing) Day 2008:

Immediate Gratification

The way precious open space is distributed among New York City’s residents is deeply flawed—those with the least private space, who live in the densest parts of the city, also have the most difficulty accessing public green space. And while reallocating space for public parks [owned and maintained by the City Parks Department] where they are most needed is a long-term project whose progress is pegged to many economic and political conditions, Park(ing) Day is an opportunity for a quick hit! We can roll out the green and put up the trees, be barefoot and relaxed in the chaotic asphalt and steel urban island jungle, demonstrating to passersby, neighbors, and most importantly OURSELVES, that more parks are possible, and NOW.

Park(ing) Day NYC is seeking architects, designers and artists interested in collaborating with community groups to produce Park(ing) Spots in collaboration with NYC community groups. These spots will be inventive proof-of-concept for street space reclamation, and are also eligible to receive a larger mini-grant. Contact us for more information.

Thanks to the enormous success of last year’s 25 Park(ing) Spots, the decision has been made to double the number of spots we’re funding this year to 50! With twice as many Park(ing) Spots, we’re hoping to put them in neighborhoods across the 5 boroughs.

But we need your help! If you know of a person, organization, firm, practice, corporation, or extra-terrestrial that you think would be interested in building a Park(ing) Spot in their neighborhood, let them know! Or, better yet, build one yourself!