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?