A third excerpt from the recently released book published by Island Press called Urban Green: Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities. In this post, we look at some examples of boulevards and parkways used as parks. When the parkway was first invented by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvin Vaux in the 1860s, it was much more a “park” and less a “way” [...]
Filed under: green infrastructure, planning | Tagged: boston, kansas city, minneapolis, new york, parkways/boulevards | 1 Comment »
New plans for a greenway along the Allegheny Riverfront in Pittsburgh. Next American City has the story, along with a fantastic picture of Point State Park. Kaid Benfield at NRDC reviews Peter Harnik’s “Urban Green: Innovative Parks for Resurgent Cities.” Jonathan Lerner at Miller-McCune discusses the connections between urban planning and public health, highlighting the [...]
Filed under: uncategorized | Tagged: health, new york city, parkways/boulevards, philadelphia, pittsburgh, waterfronts | Leave a Comment »
Planners have long held up the idea of connectivity – links between people and places that tie everything together. Within park systems, the concept goes back at least to when the walls of European cities came down, as many of them (e.g. Paris), were turned into grand boulevards ringing their cities and linking up places. [...]
Filed under: planning, stimulus funds, transportation | Tagged: bikes, connectivity, parkways/boulevards | 7 Comments »
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 »
Streetfilms gives a neat look at the Sunday Parkways program in Chicago, in which about three miles of the city’s parkways were closed to car traffic on four Sundays in October, including through parks. The route cut through neighborhoods lacking park space, and essentially turned the city’s wide boulevards into large linear parks. The video [...]
Filed under: programming, transportation | Tagged: chicago, parkways/boulevards | Leave a Comment »
The New York Times recently highlighted Ocean Parkway, one of the earliest examples of a parkway in the U.S. and designed by Olmsted and Vaux. Constructed in 1876, the five-mile Ocean Parkway stretches from the heart of the borough to Coney Island. The Times describes its mix of users and lively feel: Every layer of [...]
Filed under: transportation | Tagged: brooklyn, parkways/boulevards | Leave a Comment »
