Additional Cities Join National Park(ing) Day
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – Several additional cities across America will gain temporary new downtown parks for a few hours on Friday, September 21 as part of National Park(ing) Day, a public project sponsored by a national conservation nonprofit.
On National Park(ing) Day metered public parking spots nationwide will become public parks. The goals, according to organizers, are to celebrate parks and promote the need for more parks in America’s cities.
In the past week, supporters in a number of cities have signed up to participate, including Chicago, Salt Lake City, San Diego, Austin, TX, and Missoula, MT.
Previously, supporters in a number of other cities, including New York, Boston, Minneapolis, Washington DC, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and others, had announced participation.
Organizers are also inviting local groups to participate, expanding the opportunity from one park to a system of park(ing) parks. Details online at www.tpl.org/parkingday.
Examples of planned Park(ing) Day parks include:
New York City: More than 20 parking spots in the five boroughs will be transformed into lawns for lounging, gardens for growing and other community minded purposes. Park(ing) parks will show up in areas of Times Square, Rockefeller Center and Penn Station.
Los Angeles: In the South LA community along Crenshaw Boulevard, a Park(ing) park will have physical activity features for exercise for the local community to enjoy.
Seattle: Two mobile Park(ing) parks will first be sited at the Seattle Art Museum and the Olympic Sculpture Park -each complete with grass, a Hawthorne tree, and a bench- and midday, they’ll swap spots.
Minneapolis and St. Paul: Park(ing) parks in the two cities will reflect contrasting park needs. In Minneapolis, a Park(ing) park at the possible site of a new downtown park. In St. Paul, a Park(ing) park in the Frogtown neighborhood, where local parks are hard to come by.
“By turning parking spaces into instant parks, National Park(ing) Day is a creative way to demonstrate the real need to create more parks in our cities,” said Will Rogers, president of The Trust for Public Land (TPL). “Across America, cities are renewing their investments in parks because our civic leaders have come to recognize that close-to-home parks, gardens, and playgrounds are essential if we are to have cities that aren’t just livable, but lovable.”
TPL, a national conservation nonprofit founded in 1972, is sponsoring National Park(ing) Day 2007, a concept created by San Francisco art collective Rebar. In 2005, Rebar created its first “PARK(ing)” project by transforming a metered parking spot into a temporary public park, briefly expanding the public realm and improving the quality of urban human habitat (at least until the meter ran out).
“Our goal was to encourage people to rethink the way our streets are used, and to temporarily expand the amount of public open space in an underserved area of downtown San Francisco,” says John Bela, co-founder of Rebar. “We added ’24,000 square foot-minutes’ of public open space that afternoon.”
Join The Trust for Public Land for a National Park(ing) Day event near you, create your own park, learn about park needs near you, and find out how to get involved.
