Happy Friday Folks
TGIF!
Thank you Anita Bullock for today’s YEOW suggestion! [If anyone else has any YEOW's they’d like to share, please feel free to let me know! Thx J]
Ok. I'm back, and Today’s Environment Of the Week will be
At Pattern Cities we like to observe how good ideas spread.
A few years ago, New York City began implementing a slew of tactical urbanism “pilot” projects that add public space and improve street safety. By making quick, low cost improvements using temporary and/or inexpensive materials, the City was able to swiftly make the improvements and monitor their success. Many of these projects are now on their way to becoming permanent, like the transformation of Broadway, which is perhaps the most well-known example. Today, more than 50 such projects are on their way to replacing car space with people space all over this great city.
Seeing the wisdom of this deliberate, low-cost approach, city officials in San Francisco developed their own “Pavement to Parks” program, which makes use of the same tactics to achieve the same results: more public space, safer streets.
San Francisco’s Pavement to Parks projects are inspired by the recent success of similar projects in New York City – where plazas and seating areas have been created in excess roadway simply by painting or treating the asphalt, placing protective barriers along the periphery, and installing moveable tables and chairs. Streets such as Broadway have been transformed into much more inviting and pedestrian-friendly spaces through New York’s efforts.
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| My favorite pic of all. |
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| Uh! |
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| Cool Idea! |
Not to be outdone, NYC took the cue and has since added their own “pop-up” cafes, which are typically placed in front of restaurants where sidewalk widths preclude outdoor sidewalk seating. While the seats are open to restaurant patrons and non-patrons alike, intelligent business owners surely see the benefit to making space for people to linger in front of their establishments. Since last fall, several pop-up cafes have been built in Manhattan, adding much needed places to sit and enjoy the City’s wonderful street life. However, it was not until this past Friday that Brooklyn received its own example, at Smith and Warren Streets in the borough’s lively Cobble Hill neighborhood. Associated with the Ecopolis Cafe, the DOT has further leveraged a previous investment in pedestrian curb extensions by providing this additional public space amenity.
While snapping photos at rush hour, I was able to witness dozens of people noticing the pop-up cafe for the first time–particularly those exiting the subway who probably didn’t notice the cafe on their way to work that morning.
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| Try this in Your City! |
the steps
Streetfilms will produce a short and fun video documenting the new pop-up cafés that are being installed throughout NYC. The 5 to 10 minute film will show the positive impact and enjoyment that pop-up cafés bring to neighborhoods, businesses, and pedestrians. The film will feature interviews with pop-up café users, artists who designed them, business owners who installed them, NYC Department of Transportation (DOT) officials, and advocates for more pop-up cafés. Our small and efficient crew will film for one week, edit and distribute it in Fall 2011. The film will be distributed widely for free on Streetfilms.org, and through Facebook, Twitter, and Vimeo. Streetfilms will also host a community screening where people can come learn more about the value of pop-up cafés.
why we're doing it
New York City continues to grow and the increased density of the city means we need to re-examine how we partition our street space for pedestrians, bikes, cars and transit. Cars take up far too much space in the current equation, and leave pedestrians scrambling for space on our neighborhood sidewalks. Pop-up cafés are an inexpensive and easy solution to this problem—they help provide more space for pedestrians by reclaiming only one or two parking spots per block. Pop-up cafés, paid for by host local businesses, provide dedicated space for people to sit and have a cup of coffee, meet friends for lunch, or just to rest their weary legs. NYC is becoming known for our new and fantastic pedestrian plazas like in Times Square, and pop-up cafés allow neighborhoods to create their own pedestrian spaces on a smaller and affordable scale to enrich their communities. Unfortunately, pop-up cafés are sometimes met with resistance because people are afraid removing one or two parking spaces on a block will have negative impacts. “Discover NYC Pop-Up Cafés” will help get the message out that we need to keep improving pedestrian spaces in NYC to create a better, safer and more livable city.
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