Space invaders
In Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline, citizens find perfect spots to raise environmental awareness
By Eric Moskowitz, Globe Staff | September 18, 2010
In the parking spaces along Commonwealth Avenue in front of Boston University?s Graduate School of Arts & Sciences yesterday at 1 p.m.: Honda, Lexus, Lexus, Ford, patch of sod with people lounging on a couch.
What?
A professor and his former student beckoned passersby to check e-mail on a laptop, play board games, get their bikes fixed, or just hang out with them. ?No Stopping?? and ?Tow Zone?? signs nearby were tweaked to read ?Stopping?? and ?Toe Zone.??
?Even on a rainy day, you can enjoy the outdoors in a city like Boston,?? said Greg Hum, a recent BU graduate and one of the hosts in the spot. It was one of 10 parking spots in the Boston area, and hundreds around the world, where pavement was temporarily reclaimed for PARK(ing) Day, an annual, unofficial anticar celebration.
In Boston, Cambridge, and Brookline, ordinarily mundane, if coveted, parking spaces gave way to live chickens, sidewalk chalk, fortune-telling, live music, and hula hooping. The day ? its founders call it an ?open-source global event?? ? is part art installation, part environmental project, and part garden party, meant to encourage people to consider the urban landscape and how much of it is devoted to moving or storing automobiles.
?It?s rethinking public space. It?s a demonstration of how much can fit in the size of a parking spot,?? said Jackie Douglas, executive director of the LivableStreets Alliance, the Cambridge nonprofit that introduced PARK(ing) Day to Boston two years ago, occupying a single spot. ?And it?s fun.??
The event started in San Francisco five years ago when Rebar, an art and design studio, fed the meter in one of the city?s bleaker sections, unrolled sod, put up a bench and tree, and created a two-hour park between a pair of parked cars.
A photo of the event went viral, and Rebar was soon fielding requests from others wanting to know how to re-create it. Instead, they encouraged people to have fun and be creative, putting their own stamp on a parking space-turned-park on a coordinated Friday in September. Last year, more than 700 spots in 140 international cities were used.
?People sort of say, ?PARK(ing) Day, what the heck is that?? ?? said Linda Olson Pehlke, an urban planner and Brookline Town Meeting member who helped organize the spaces yesterday in Coolidge Corner. ?But once they experience it, [they want to] get in on the fun.??
On one side of Harvard Street an ?urban oasis?? offered beach chairs, sand, and water for wading. On the other side, in front of Coolidge Corner Theatre, passersby watched short films of a similar theme (?Depaving Day,?? ?Paint a Parking Lot, Put up a Paradise??), collected literature, and tossed discs provided by the car-sharing company Zipcar.
Participants secured permits from local governments to occupy spots all day. Brookline and Cambridge waived their fees and helped promote the event, but in Boston, Nathan Phillips, a BU professor, put up about $225 to secure permits and post an insurance bond for five adjacent spots in two locations.
Phillips contemplated that for a moment, but he didn?t seem disappointed. ?We value the parking space,?? he said, standing on sod he had collected from Gold Star Farm in New Hampshire. ?It shouldn?t be free.??
The Cambridge spaces received a promotional boost from CitySmart, a program in that city that encourages people to walk, bike, or ride public transportation rather than drive. In Brookline, Pehlke?s effort quickly attracted support from backers ranging from the town?s Department of Public Works to the Garden Club to Upper Crust Pizza.
But the event does not enjoy a universally smooth relationship with business. Some shopkeepers welcome it, some oppose, and some are torn.
?I think anything we can do in the city to encourage people to use their bikes, to walk, to take the bus, to plan fewer car trips . . . is a good thing,?? said Rick Henry, owner of Stellabella Toys. Still, he said, ?Neighborhood retailers in Cambridge and Somerville and places like that, we need our customers to be able to get to us, and sometimes they can?t conveniently do it by walking or taking the T.??
In Porter Square, hula hoopers swiveled in one space, while up the street, a space occupied by the Cambridge Climate Emergency Action group was less whimsical. It featured a bookshelf of works by environmental writers Rachel Carson and Bill McKibben, a display of energy-saving posters from World War II (?Have you REALLY tried to save energy by getting into a car club??? a GI on the front asked), and a planter brimming with homegrown parsley. Minka vanBeuzekom asked people to sign a petition promising to reduce their energy consumption and carbon emissions, and asking government to take action.
But it wasn?t without fun. The group had a raffle for an electric bike and put out spread of secretly healthy chocolate muffins.
?You can?t really tell there are beets in there,?? vanBeuzekom said from a parking spot in front of Pemberton Farms market, ?unless you?re looking for the beet flavor.??
Eric Moskowitz can be reached at
emoskowitz@globe.com.