St. Louis to Participate in National Park(ing) Day on Friday September 21, 2007
The City of Saint Louis is joining numerous other cities this year in promoting the National Land Trust’s “National Park(ing) Day 2007.” I received the following statement from St. Louis’ Director of Planning & Urban Design, Rollin Stanley:
National parking day is being celebrated in cities around the world including 23 in the U.S. Groups are invited to “adopt†a parking space on Chestnut Street just north of City Hall, between Tucker and 15th Street (to 17th if needed), or contact your local business association to participate along a commercial street. This event “greens†street parking spaces. Your group can simply lay tarp, sod, provide some potted trees and a park bench, or be more creative.
A sod lounger perhaps. A small water element. Be creative. Bring your “green†materials onto Chestnut Street and select a parking space. Feed the meter just as you would if you were parking your car. Then prepare your space for the day or part of the day. When you are finished, pack up your materials and leave the space as you found it.
If you have questions, please contact Rollin Stanley at the City of St. Louis Planning & Urban Design Agency at 259-3426.
Mr. Stanley indicates they’ve had a good response including, “some artists; a college group; local architects.” Stanley asks that efforts not start until after 8:30am as building inspectors are parked there before then. Unfortunately Mr. Stanley will not be present on Friday as he will be speaking at an event in New Orleans.
OK, I’ve done my civic duty to help spread the word about this potentially good event. However, the intent behind the effort is to create park space where it is needed. So St. Louis’ choice of Chestnut — bordered on both sides by park space — seems foolish at best. Furthermore, most of Chestnut at this area is angled parking which may look a bit odd and potentially hidden between two larger vehicles. You’d think they would have picked something more logical — a street surrounded by buildings on both sides — like Washington Ave for example.
For more information check out a video from the 2006 event in San Francisco as well as http://www.parkingday.org. I’d like to see more of these “parks” spring up throughout the city although it may be a challenge to get something organized this late. Maybe something along Euclid? South Grand? St. Louis Avenue next to Crown Candy? Cherokee? Washington Avenue in front of Copia?
Maybe next year. Artists and gardeners, mark your calendars for September 2008.
UPDATE 9/19/2007 @ 2:35pm:
I just checked the website of the Downtown St. Louis Partnership and I found no mention of this event at all. Their calendar of events lists a music event on Thursday at Union Station as well as the Taste of St. Louis this weekend but nothing about this or the meeting on MetroLink Thursday afternoon.  The City’s own Calendar of Events fails to mention this as well, although it does include the meetings on MetroLink and the Taste of St. Louis as well as the concert at Union Station. The city’s press release website also doesn’t show any announcement of this event — I went back as far as May 1st looking for a call for participants or an announcement of the event but found nothing. Ditto for Mayor Slay’s campaign site — the place where much information that should be announced through the city’s own press release system ends up.
yeah, silly, but what fun!
I’d say around 6th and Olive or thereabouts.
(anti-spam word: creative)
It’s a shame they didn’t publicize this more in advance so people could block the day.
Learning about this so late (Tuesday in my case) leaves little time to develop any really cool idea.
That said …. is there any reason we couldn’t do this just anytime? Make our miniature greenspace and keep the meter fed? A grass-roots movement, so to speak?
They want people to come green Chestnut so the administration can use it as an excuse to close it.
Actually, Doug, I’ve wondered for some time why Chestnut St is open, given the excess capacity available on Market.
Duh . . . it’s easier to “steal” a space in front of a park than one in front of a business – no one to complain to their alderman!
I’d heard of this before, but more as an act of civil disobedience, or really, I suppose, as an unlicensed act of artistic expression. I was really surprised to see this as something ‘promoted’ by cities. What’s going to happen next, a city sponsored Critical Mass?
that is indeed an odd location. Even odder if you consider that all of the metered spots Chestnut from Tucker to 15th are pretty much full of vehicles displaying the infamous ‘City of St. Louis’ photocopied free parking pass. If people wait until after 8:30 am there will indeed be zero spaces on this stretch of street. Usually, it is so full of ‘official’ vehicles that even most hydrants, cross walks, etc. are also parked in.
On second thought, what a great idea to draw attention to this mess!
Autos became a major factor in the 1930s when free, unlimited parking and use of public streets was considered every American’s constitutional right. However, too many cars coupled with too few curbs led to too many conflicts.
The park-o-meter was invented by Carl Magee of OK in order to counterbalance many of the negative trends created by the rapid growth in auto-related problems. The device was quickly labeled un-American, “gypometers”, and a tax on auto usage. Bill Gottlieb, President of the NY Auto Club, claimed that “they were just a combination of an alarm clock and a slot machine which is being used for further socking the motorists”.
Many lawsuits were filed but by the early 1940s, meters had grown to over 140,000 nationwide and merchants began to notice their value, especially when they increased turnover in parking spaces. As written by Arthur Pound of the Atlantic Monthly magazine in 1938; “None of our cities were designed for motor traffic, and only in the West were they young enough when the automobile arrived en masse to adapt themselves to the new traffic medium,…”
Our streets belong to people and not to cars. On what streets in the StL area can one legally park a scooter, a bicycle, a mountain bike, etc.?
For more, see (7-13-07 & 8-13): http://www.streetfilms.org/
Come by Cherokee (Cherokee and Texas) to check out a PARKing Space on Friday.
There’s a spot set up, apparently with sponsorship from Pedro’s Planet recycling company, right now on Market Street alongside Aloys P. Kaufmann Park, just east of 13th Street. Kinda cool.
Also, is it me, or is that a Cabbage Patch doll being held by the girl being rescued by the firefighter in the bronze statue in the park.
I’m also wondering what’s up with all the St. Louis Police Academy recruits being lined up at the plaza in front of Civil Courts along Tucker every morning. Some kind of a drill?