Blog: Parks

This evening, I met up with a former coworker outside the Google office. We just wanted to chat and catch up, and strolled along looking for a good place to sit. Neither of us wanted a loud, crowded bar or club with expensive drinks, as are common in the Meatpacking District.

And then, as we reached the corner of 14th Street and 9th Avenue, in the middle of the intersection, was a large, triangular plaza full of folding chairs, small tables, outdoor umbrellas, and bushes:

Image via Streetsblog. It was much darker outside but otherwise this is what it looked like.

What is this? Can we really just sit down and enjoy the beautiful weather and the lively city? Yes, it's true: a real public square. We sat and talked and relaxed in this oasis among busy streets. It still feels temporary, but it's a major step.

This is the effect of New York's new, progressive DOT. What was once a huge, crowded intersection with way too many turn lanes has become a space for people. Announced in late June, it opened only three months later. Thanks NYC DOT—you've made one part of Manhattan much more pleasant and enabled an enjoyable few hours this evening.

The Times writes about the city's East River Esplanade plan, which since it's done by the Department of City Planning, has very pretty pictures and detailed PDFs.

The Times:

Few people reminisce longingly about the New York waterfront of the 1970's, with its decrepit piers, graffiti-covered warehouses and tetchy drag queens. But you can say this for it: it had a gritty integrity. The typical riverfront developments of today, with their traditional lampposts and quaint park benches, drip with nostalgia for a city that never was. They have all the charm of an open-air suburban mall.

The master plan for an East River esplanade, which was unveiled last month by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, is a welcome reprieve from that New York cliché. Covering a two-mile stretch of waterfront from Battery Park to East River Park in Lower Manhattan, the project will transform a series of abandoned piers and derelict corners beneath the Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive into a vibrant urban panorama without sacrificing the rough edges.

It's not clear from the actual presentation whether keeping the "rough edges" was deliberate or simply the most efficient way to build something nice underneath an enormous freeway, but it's an interesting interpretation nonetheless.

At 4:59:30 PM this afternoon, a few hundred people stood massed at the perimeter of the Bryant Park lawn in New York, holding sheets and blankets. At 5:00:00, the police let them on. At 5:00:30, 95% of the lawn was covered. This is the land grab for seating for the Bryant Park Film Festival. Over the following four hours, people gradually arrived to fill in the space their friends had reserved.

People in general were quite respectful of the spaces others had reserved - one group next to us had about 3 large bedsheets completely unguarded, and nothing happened. Fascinating potential sociological experiment: what would happen if someone planted a blanket, then left and nobody ever came to sit on it? How long would it take before people encroached on the space, or took it away entirely? Would people fill in the space only once the film started? Would the effect be different for larger blankets versus smaller? What if there was a backpack on the blanket?

For my part, I really enjoyed the hours of waiting as friends gradually arrived, we played cards, and chatted. Just like the Fourth of July on the Esplanade in Boston, I actually enjoyed that part much more than the movie, which while entertaining also required sitting on fairly uncomfortably ground; plus, as the movie got close the blankets got a lot more crowded.

Several of the people I invited decided to swing by because they hadn't seen me in a while, but then had a great time running into other people they didn't expect to see (whom I or another in our group had also invited). Just about everyone there was in a large group - the land grab logistics almost demand it. A lot of social capital is built in Bryant Park on summer Mondays.

It seems there are three major elements to this social capital creation: a good space, an activity to attract people, and structure that fosters interaction between people, inviting people, and other group forming behaviors. Are there other key components?