Parking spaces go green for a day
Ever wondered what the city might look like if it didn't have so much asphalt? Well, tomorrow (Friday, Sept. 17) in a handfull of places around Baltimore, you can get an idea.
Activists, artists, landscape architects and just plain folks will be converting curbside parking spaces into pocket parks, complete with grass, plants - even a green roof in at least one case.
It's all part of PARK(ing) Day, an annual event intended to demonstrate the need for more urban open space. It began in San Francisco (of course) five years ago and has gone global since.
"The goal is really to show people what even just a little green space can do to the city," says Joan Floura, co-owner of Floura Teeter, a landscape architect firm in the 300 block W. Franklin Street that's camping out Friday in three spaces in front of the office.
There'll be grass, of course, and a small green roof outside Floura Teeter to show how they're made and how they soak up storm runoff. There'll be more than a bit of whimsy, too.
"We’re having croquet out in Fanklin Street," Floura says. "How many times a year can you do that?"
Anybody can get in on the fun - though it's too late for this year. Go here if you'd like to get in on this DIY event in 2011.
Here in Baltimore, you'll have an extra hoop to jump through. In the city, it's illegal to block off a parking space without a permit. So you have to contact the Department of General Services, fill out a form, pay $65 for use of the curb lane and 15 per space - and wait three days (That's why it's too late for this year). You can get the form online here. Fax or mail it in, or go in person to the permits office at 200 Holliday Street. Ask for Helen Marinelli, the Queen of Permits.
Meanwhile, here are the others besides Floura Teeter who'll be PARK(ing) on Friday:
1) Planning firm EDSA Inc. will creat a "Guerilla Park" on Commerce Stret north of Pratt Street (just north of World Trade Center);
2) Architects Ayers Saint Gross will have a storm-water education park at Thames Street and South Broadway;
3) MD chapter American Society of Landscape Architects will have a "green living room" on St. Paul Street just south of Mt. Royal Avenue;
4) Morgan State University landscape architecture students will show they're not just shrub experts at 40-50 E. Cross St. in Federal Hill;
5) Artist Marian Glebes, in collaboration with Parks & People, will set up a campsite at North Avenue and North Charles Street in front of the Wind Up Space bar.
(Floura Teeter's 2009 PARK(ing) oasis, courtesy the company)
Comments
I do not think the City needs more open spaces. The City needs more tax paying businesses--not parks. The City cannot effectively manage and operate the parks that exist currently. I think the percentage of the City occupied with park land is good. There are perhaps a few additional sections of town where a multiple acre parks would be ideal, but there simply aren't locations to place them.
I'm sure that the article here was intended to be rather cheeky, but one cannot have grass used for high turn over parking spaces.
I agree the City could do without many of its off-street parking spaces but pocket parks are just not a financially viable option unless neighborhoods or business operate them. They are simply inefficient from a maintenance cost perspective.
Posted by: Nate | September 16, 2010 5:38 PM
The real purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate the enormous public subsidy municipal governments provide for parking and cars. A parking space is essentially a short term lease on a piece of land, the fact the "parkers" have to get a permit to "block" a parking spcae (which is what cars do) draws even more attention to this enormous subsidy. If the parking spaces were market-rate the budget would be in much better shape.
Posted by: Will D | September 17, 2010 11:13 AM
I think that the idea of the event is more that people begin to think more broadly about the allocation of urban space, particularly how much of it is devoted to automobiles.
The parks simply represent usable public space within the streetscape, which we could use a lot more of. And parking spaces just happen to be quasi-usable portions of roadway--perfect for day-long demonstration projects.
Regardless, glad to see so much activity here in Baltimore! It would seem more parks sprouted up here this year than in D.C.
Posted by: Tom Gonzales | September 17, 2010 3:10 PM
CAN YOU SPELL H-Y-P-O-C-R-I-T-E-S?
Lets see.......one parking space on East Cross Street was wasted by these antics today............and when the "participants" were getting ready to leave I noticed as they brought their 3 yes, 3 petroleum fueled vehicles to the area to load up their literature, plants, chairs, snik-snacks & umbrella.
NOT one hybrid vehicle in the bunch!
PATHETIC.
Posted by: really? | September 17, 2010 5:10 PM
Why the vitriol, "really?"
Hybrid vehicles are e~x~p~e~n~s~i~v~e. In your world, should people *really* not do anything cool, fun and green-focused unless they can afford this relatively new and costly technology?
As you can see in the article above, the Park(ing) day folks paid for the space, so there was no loss to the city. Is the loss of a single parking space throughout all of Federal Hill for a single day really such a huge "waste"?
I was involved in the Park(ing) Day spot on North Avenue and Charles Street, and passersby -- whether on foot or in cars -- smiled, waved, and stopped to chat. EVERYone loved the idea of a spontaneous, temporary little park. It became an impromptu gathering spot and a place for social interaction. It's startling and pleasant to see a new little green space where asphalt used to be. As Nate points out above it probably doesn't make sense to do it in the long-term, but as a temporary thing it made the city a little brighter and happier.
So why the anger? Are you seriously so mad that these people didn't own hybrid cars? Why the quotation marks around "participants"? And what is a "snik-snack" anyway?
Posted by: Abby | September 27, 2010 8:38 AM