Monday, November 28, 2011

Parking to Parklets


Transforming parking spots to parklets: Philadelphia joins an urban trend

August 04, 2011|By Inga Saffron, Inquirer Architecture Critic
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  • Joe McNulty, Corridor Manager for the University City District, transplants flora into the large metal planters that are part of the Parklet that is going into the intersection of 43rd and Baltimore. ( Michael Bryant / Staff photographer ) (Michael Bryant/Staff photographe)
Joe McNulty, Corridor Manager for the University City District, transplants flora… (Michael Bryant/Staff photographe)
  • Joe McNulty, Corridor Manager for the University City District, transplants flora into the large metal planters that are part of the Parklet that is going into the intersection of 43rd and Baltimore. ( Michael Bryant / Staff photographer ) (Michael Bryant/Staff photographe)
  • Detail of one of the metal planters that is affixed to the rails of the Parklet that keep the pedestrians from wandering into the street. ( Michael Bryant / Staff photographer ) (Michael Bryant/Staff photographe)
  • Joe McNulty, Corridor Manager for the University City District, transplants flora into the large metal planters thatt are part of the parklet that is going into the intersection of 43rd and Baltimore. ( Michael Bryant / Staff photographer ) (Michael Bryant/Staff photographe)
  • The signage has not been changed but the use of the space has, as University City District has claimed two parking spots at the intersection of 43rd and Baltimore to create a tiny park space. ( Michael Bryant / Staff photographer ) (Michael Bryant/Staff photographe)
  • Joe McNulty, Corridor Manager for the University City District, transplants flora into the large metal planters thatt are part of the parklet that is going into the intersection of 43rd and Baltimore. ( Michael Bryant / Staff photographer ) (Michael Bryant/Staff photographe)
How small can you make a park and still have it serve as a civilized refuge from the teeming city? Philadelphia is about to find out.
Today, the University City District debuts Philadelphia's first "parklet," on 43d Street a few inches north of Baltimore Avenue. The shrunken park will be the size of two parking spaces. In fact, the parklet is two city parking spaces, a detail sure to cause the gnashing of some motorists' teeth.
A space measuring 40 feet by 6 feet may not sound like much of a park. But in transferring a precious patch of public street from the car to the pedestrian, Philadelphia is embracing the latest urban trend. The pavement-to-parks movement began two summers ago in New York, when Mayor Bloomberg annexed an entire lane of Broadway for an archipelago of public plazas, and then jumped to San Francisco, where parklets were seen as a cheap way to create places to sun and socialize.

 

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