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.
The Board of Directors of the Loughborough Commons Community Improvement District are meeting later today at the downtown law firm of Greensfelder, Hemker and Gale, P.C. This ‘CID’ was set up to use some of the tax revenues collected at Loughorough Commons to fund improvements. It is a quasi governmental entity and therefore subject to open meetings laws.
