You work with what you have. Everyone wants to turn the city they live in into the city it could be, but where are you going to begin? How about with a simple but suggestive play on words? Because if there's one thing we've got a lot of, as a city, it's asphalt, much of it carefully parceled out into metered parking spaces. It's a huge amount of space — space that you never think about until you need it. But on Friday, September 21, you're invited to think about it in a new and vivid way, as, for one day, downtown Toledo "parking spaces" are magically transformed into PARKS.
Reclaiming the commons
That's PARK(ing) Day. To be clear, it's not the first time. It's a new urban tradition that was born in the last decade. Like a lot of trends, it started on the West Coast — in San Francisco, to be precise. The folks at Rebar, a hip design firm, were a bit distressed that so much of the public space in their area was given over to serving the needs of private vehicles. But they saw a loophole. A metered parking space essentially allows you to lease public property for a limited time, and Rebar took that opportunity to give that space back to the public
. On a typically lovely San Fran afternoon, they transformed a parking space into a miniature park, complete with trucked-in sod, a comfy bench and a (potted) tree. The "park" existed for a mere two hours, but photos of it in all its glorious incongruity went viral online, and a global trend was born.
Bringing it home
In 2011, 162 cities in 35 countries took part in the celebration, and for the first time, Toledo was one of them. The UpTown Association seized the opportunity to promote the struggling-yet-creatively-fertile area on the edge of downtown, and residents stepped up, creating 27 parks ranging from the simple to the avant garde. The City Paper was thrilled to participate, and we felt like our whimsical Alice In Wonderland theme was a hit.
This year, the UpTown Association hopes to better that showing, with some 30 business on board to participate. (Yes, we're one of them!) They'll be spread out all day along Adams Street, between 11th and 19th (from our offices up to Bretz nightclub). With any luck, we'll get some beautiful last-day-of-summer weather, so if you're anywhere near downtown, don't miss your chance to take a stroll from park to park and see ordinary space transformed into something extraordinary.
PARK(ing) Day runs from 11am to 6pm. And when it's over, the parks are gone, so don't delay! Call 419-290-8629 for more info, or visit www.uptowntoledo.org/parking-day.php.
Check out our photos from PARK(ing) Day
