National Park(ing) Day

The Trust for Public Land was proud to sponsor National Park(ing) Day, a global event, on Friday September 21, 2007, with more than 150 public parking spots transformed into public parks! The Park(ing) Day concept was created by San Francisco art collective Rebar in 2005. Join the National Park(ing) Day group on Flickr.

National Park(ing) Day is an opportunity to transform public parking spaces into parks and open spaces--places for people to enjoy.

The quality of our daily experience is only enhanced by often-neglected necessities like parks, playgrounds, and gardens--places that get us in touch with nature, with each other, and with ourselves.

Colette Bouchard reports on Bayside’s participation in the event: The Bayside Neighborhood Association celebrated National Park(ing) Day by creating a small temporary park at the intersection of Oxford and Elm Streets in Bayside.A number of people who live and work in the neighborhood came by to ask about it. Channel 8 talked with Ron Spinella and me and interviewed me on camera (to be aired at noon that day, they said). There was advance notice of the park in a free local newspaper, the West End News.

Councilors Kevin Donoghue and Jim Cloutier came by, and Emily (Koehn), Susan (McCloskey), and I had a nice conversation with Dan Stewart, the person from Maine Dept. of Transportation who advocates for accessibility for bicyclists and pedestrians. Dan urged us to push for park space wherever we could. He
pointed out that Post Office Park was a parking lot for many years and that at one time turning it into a park seemed like a long shot to many people.

So thank you to Steve (Hirshon), Emily, and Susan for helping to staff the park, and thank you to Ron for helping to quickly get the site ready for Channel 8 coverage (and to Victoria for communicating with the press and notifying me about when Channel 8 would come by). Thank you to Alex (Landry) for suggesting the wording for our signs, "Oxford/Elm St. Park," and for spending his lunch break at the park and participating in our photo op.

The “park” was a success, and we'll do something even bigger next year!

-Colette Bouchard