What’s all this sitting by the meters on the 500 block of McKinney St. today? Allyn West sends over some shots of the parking-spot-sized pocket parks currently occupying a few of Downtown’s on-street spaces. And you, too, can sit there, but only if you hustle: The ephemeral parklets are open for communal use until about 3 PM as part of the annual Park(ing) Day affair, now in its 12th year of instigating fleeting streetscape conversions in hundreds of cities around the world.
One of this year’s parks has its very own ideologically-conflicted seesaw:
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Others set aside more space for leafy greens:
Still other park instigators have taken a different tack:
- Park(ing) Day Manifesto [Parkingday.org]
- Previously on Swamplot:Â These Parking Spaces Are Temporarily Reserved for Board Games Only
Photos: Allyn West
Metered Park(ing)
I am sure Houston’s street people will enjoy it immensely ….
Thanks for the photos. Fun and creative, sorry to have missed the event this year.
Hey kids! This is why you don’t waste mom and dads money on a liberal arts degree!
@Ironchef Why are you so offended by creativity and people challenging the way we think about how we use space in our city. Go back to burning books and your grayscale life. BTW, I participated and I paid for my own college degree. Stop trolling.
@JJ, I think you’re assigning way too much meaning to putting a couch in a parking spot. Just like most artists, conjuring up meaning from thin air about mundane and boring things to justify said art degree.
Even an outdoor temporary living room has a forgotten coffee container and jacket. It’s not just my living room.
@Commonsense People did more than put a couch in a parking spot. The only thing I’m assigning way too much meaning to is responding to trolling posts like yours. The proactive changemakers will continue to participate in events like these while you continue to use your immense creativity commenting on Swamplot stories…
While I understand, generally, the sentiment behind this initiative, I think in Houston it may be a little misguided. If we want a more walkable environment, with fewer buildings set back behind parking lots, we actually need more on-street parking spaces (to both accommodate business patrons arriving by car and help buffer pedestrians on the sidewalk), and fewer off-street ones.
@JJ, the only time artists become “changemakers” is when they have to give change from a $20 for a latte, and then turn around to make it.
@commonsense I was actually going to bet someone that you would say that. You know, your comments are becoming a little predictable…
As a long-time lurker of Swamplot, the toxicity shown by regular users like @commonsense is starting to irk me. Not all creative people are “liberal arts majors” there is a lot of collaboration between disciplines, including those that do it as a hobby. Nonetheless, they are spending their time doing something they enjoy in hopes of improving our quality of life. Projects like these should -probably- evoke some sort of positive reaction so… I don’t understand these stale pieces of bread commenting negativity about things that likely don’t affect them.