Bryant Park is a success story in its turn around from a drug haven in the early 1980s to a gem of New York City today. It is also a place has become a model for how to create uses and increase usage of urban parks through different features. One feature often not mentioned is [...]
Filed under: uncategorized | Tagged: libraries, new york city | Leave a Comment »
Benjamin Barber, writing in the Nation, has some thoughts on how cities can use public art as attraction but also integrated into the more mundane spaces, be it neighborhood parks or commons: Consider Millennium Park in Chicago. The city got it right by engaging artists, designers and architects to collaborate in creating the space, with [...]
Filed under: facilities, planning | Tagged: public art | Leave a Comment »
Between efforts to make bicycling better and improve the public realm in Manhattan, New York City has been making some steps to upgrade boulevard streets for more users — making the center medians of these facilities into usable and attractive public spaces rather than just an area between two directions of traffic. Case in point: [...]
Filed under: facilities, transportation | Tagged: new york city, parkways/boulevards | 2 Comments »
The EPA recently released a guidebook on creating healthy communities for older Americans entitled Growing Smarter, Living Healthier. The booklet centers around using smart growth principles to build communities that allow people to be active, mobile, involved in their community, near amenities and the like. The idea is that communities built to nurture these elements [...]
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Neal Peirce surveys the country and finds some big things going on in the world of city parks in his weekly column on urban affairs. He starts in St. Louis, writing about its new downtown city park: Citygarden, just west of the famed Gateway Arch on the Mississippi River, has drawn crowds of people–a cross-section [...]
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The Washington Post ran a nice story on residents waking up at very early hours and even camping out on top of picnic benches to grab space for their outings on Labor Day in the District of Columbia’s parks. Here’s the lead paragraphs: When James Caldwell has a yen for a weekend cookout at Anacostia [...]
Filed under: economics, facilities | Tagged: washington dc | 1 Comment »
The Tempelhof airport, the Berlin airport most famous around the world for being the drop off point for the Berlin Airlift, will be turned into the city’s largest park. According The Local, the English-language German news service, the city plans to spend 60 million euros (~85 million US dollars) over the next seven years to [...]
Filed under: international, transportation | Tagged: berlin | 1 Comment »
The Labor Day picnic is a common event to city parks across the country. eHow actually brings us a five step plan for doing so: Step 1. Don’t stress over the preparations. Make it easy on yourself by buying pre-made food or putting together simple snacks and drinks. Since it’s Labor Day, try to honor [...]
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Newark, New Jersey is revitalizing its park system, which has struggled for years from disinvestment and a lack of facilities or land. Jesse Allen Park opens with new skatepark. The park, according to Mayor Cory Booker has been “a dream for many years.” (Newark Live) Artist works to change the perception and use of a [...]
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GOOD magazine takes us to Philadelphia to look at the city’s new trash compactors. LOVE Park (or JFK Plaza as it is formally known) is seen in the background. more about “Trash Compactors in Philadelphia“, posted with vodpod
Filed under: maintenance/management | Tagged: philadelphia, sustainability | 2 Comments »
