Posted on April 6, 2010 by Ben Welle
Great cities have great parks, and great parks have great horticulture. One person who knows the most about this is Lynden Miller, the director of the Central Park Conservatory Garden and public garden designer of many of New York City’s other outdoor oases. Drawing on lessons learned from revitalizing the Conservatory Garden, Madison Square Park, [...]
Filed under: facilities, green infrastructure, maintenance/management, partnerships | Tagged: books, horticulture | 1 Comment »
Posted on January 29, 2010 by Ben Welle
We couldn’t grab the video, but the link to WTTW (PBS) provides a short video of Maureen Hackett talking about the comeback and operations today in New York’s Bryant Park. The attention to detail described by Hackett is good reason why when you visit the park, there so much to observe.
Filed under: maintenance/management | Tagged: downtown, horticulture | Leave a Comment »
Posted on November 3, 2009 by Ben Welle
Revitalization starts with goats, or so it goes for Baltimore’s Druid Hill Park. The city’s Parks and People Foundation is undertaking a $10 million renovation of a decrepit mansion on the edge of the historic 745-acre park that will house an environmental learning center, the group’s main offices and trail connections to the rest of [...]
Filed under: green infrastructure, maintenance/management | Tagged: baltimore, sustainability | 2 Comments »
Posted on September 2, 2009 by Ben Welle
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 »
Posted on August 31, 2009 by Ben Welle
The New York Times just ran a story about the increasing use of fees to gain revenue by local governments, ranging from trade licenses to public parks. This issue has been around for a while. As government has devolved down to the local level, these budgets have found themselves strained in the last twenty years. [...]
Filed under: funding, maintenance/management | Tagged: fees | Leave a Comment »
Posted on August 5, 2009 by Ben Welle
Patrick McGeehan of the New York Times City Room blog has an interesting post on how to count visitors to parks, especially for well attended beaches and large public events. The case in point here is counting users of New York City public beaches. McGeehan describes how it is difficult to merely go around an [...]
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Posted on June 15, 2009 by Ben Welle
Kansas City is the City of Fountains, and some of them are now being powered by the sun through a partnership with the company Grundfos. From the Parks and Recreation Department: Two of Kansas City’s historic fountains are being removed from the electric grid and switched to solar power. The Thomas H. Swope Memorial Fountain [...]
Filed under: facilities, green infrastructure, maintenance/management | 2 Comments »
Posted on February 22, 2009 by Ben Welle
Ever wonder, what’s the size of an average U.S. city park? Well, we have the answer. The Center for City Park Excellence maintains a database of individual parks in the largest U.S. cities — currently at a total of 10,500 parks in about the 50 largest cities. So, a pretty big sample size to make [...]
Filed under: facilities, maintenance/management, planning | 2 Comments »
Posted on February 20, 2009 by Ben Welle
The San Francisco Chronicle blog City Insider points us to the city controller’s recently released annual review of city parks. San Francisco is unique in that it requires the controller to conduct an inspection and report on each and every park in the city. Here’s a summary of what’s reported (full report in pdf here): [...]
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Posted on December 30, 2008 by Ben Welle
MinnPost (of Minnesota) has an interesting article up about the many monuments and statues found within Minneapolis parks. Anyone interested in this subject would find it interesting and probably similar to other cities in how such items come about and have evolved. One particular snippet is that there are so many monuments and statues that [...]
Filed under: facilities, maintenance/management | Tagged: minneapolis, monuments | Leave a Comment »