Park(ing) Day at Salmon Bay School

When most people think of Park(ing) Day, they think of adults reclaiming the street and other spaces devoted to automobiles. But a group of fourth graders at Salmon Bay School in Ballard participated this year, and had a blast doing so. A report from the classroom:

At 9:15 Friday, September 17, just seven school days after the school year began, 27 fourth graders, teacher Marian, and ample chaperones headed out of Salmon Bay School on a mission. We were not going on any ordinary field trip. We were toting red wagons loaded with our temporary park features to erect a park on Park(ing) Day in our reserved parking spots in front of Ballard Public Library. In our red wagons we carried native plants (6 large snowberry bushes, 10 salal plants, 10 evergreen huckleberry plants) on loan from our favorite, friendly local nursery: Swanson's Nursery. Thanks Swanson's! We had turf rolls, a good investment to reuse for future temporary parks and plays. We had a fish bowl "pond" with real guppies that students were in charge of planning and caring for; though we had some close calls with maintaining a healthy habitat for the fish on their transport via the bumpy wagon train, they all survived!

We brought our dream neighborhood maps to share our neighborhood dreams with the public, as well as demonstrate our mathematical skills using ordered pairs on coordinate grids used to map our neighborhoods. Students also brought their written and prepared speeches about what we were doing to share with curious passers-by and the class of 3rd graders from our school that took a field trip to visit our park. For our recreational use of our park, we brought origami materials, chess, and math games. Half of the class recreated and educated people about our park, while the other half was taken on a tour of Ballard Public Library to learn about green features of the library, and then groups rotated, and afterwards we all lunched in our park as a group of students performed a reader's theater play. Yay for street theater!!! And when it was time to leave, we picked up our park to the tune of musician-parent extraordinaire Jen Busch playing "This Land is Your Land" on traveling guitar, and we left two parking spots where our park once was.



It's great to see such a fantastic park being organized by a smart group of kids and their wonderful teachers and chaperones. I look forward to seeing what the future holds for these amazing young citizens.

Worldchanging Future City, Call for Artists

You probably know about Worldchanging's upcoming fundraiser, Future City, which features a discussion between our own mayor, Mike McGinn, and Sam Adams, the mayor Portland, that will be moderated by Alex Steffen, the Executive director of Worldchanging; but did you know they are looking for artists to decorate tablecloths? From an email I received yesterday:

Dear friends,

Worldchanging is celebrating another year with a fundraiser called "Future City" on Oct 1st.

http://www.worldchanging.com/events/

As part of the event design, we are searching for artists to work their magic on the plain, white circular tablecloths that will drape 15+ tables. They can be painted, or what not, as long as the colors are drawn from those on the book and shades and tints of grey. We hope that you would illustrate "growth" and/or "future cities" in your art.

We will be distributing the cloths by Saturday at the latest and hope to have them completed by next Wed. You can design one or a couple. If you have friends that would like to design one, let us know.

If you sign up by Friday, we will credit you in the program as well.

Please forward this on to anyone else you think may want to participate.

Feel free to contact me with any questions!

Thank you,
Morgan Greenseth

Let me know if you're interested and I'd be happy to put you in touch with Morgan.

Great City Brown Bag: Building Broadway Station

On the heels of another successful Park(ing) Day, I thought I'd pass along Great City's invitation to this Thursday's Brown Bag meeting where the Broadway light rail station will be discussed. My involvement with this project has been limited to attending the community design charrette last summer, so I'm not totally up to speed on what will be discussed, but if previous brown bags are any indication, this one will be informative.

Thursday's Brown Bag: Building Broadway Station

Where: GGLO Space at the Steps, 1301 First Ave., Level A
Date: Thursday, September 23, 2010
Time: 12:00 pm to 1:30 pm
Enter through door located about 1/4 of the way down the Harbor Steps (click for map)

The planned multi-modal transit station at Broadway and John in Capitol Hill is one of Seattle’s best opportunities to realize the full benefits of equitable transit oriented development. The neighborhood is among the densest residential neighborhoods in the city and is home to a diverse and engaged community, eager for improved transit access and revitalization in the commercial districts of Broadway, 12th Avenue, and the Pike and Pine corridors. In the coming years, Sound Transit and the City of Seattle will extend link light rail to Broadway and the University of Washington, and build a new streetcar line from the International District to Capitol Hill. These investments will in turn create significant redevelopment opportunities in the Broadway Station Area.

The Capitol Hill community has been engaged throughout the planning process for these projects, effectively advancing the community’s vision for the equitable and vibrant development that reflects the culture and character of the neighborhood. This presentation will provide an overview of the planned transit investments, the ongoing planning process, as well as development opportunities and community priorities.

Presenters:

Scott Kirkpatrick is TOD Program Manager at Sound Transit and is leading the design and planning process for the private development of 4 Sound Transit-owned sites above the Broadway Station. Private developers for these sites will be selected through and RFQ/RFP process in 2012-2013.

Ethan Melone, Rail Transit Manager at Seattle Department of Transportation, is the lead planner for the First Hill Streetcar which will connect the diverse and vibrant neighborhoods on Capitol Hill, First Hill, and in the Chinatown/International District, while serving medical centers (Harborview, Swedish, and Virginia Mason) and higher education (Seattle Central Community College and Seattle University).

Vanessa Murdock, a senior urban planner for the City of Seattle, is the City project lead for the development of an Urban Design Framework for the Sound Transit owned sites on Capitol Hill. The UDF will bridge the City’s planning policies, design guidelines and zoning regulations, laying out more specific design and development criteria for the development of the Broadway Station Area.

Cathy Hillenbrand chairs the Capitol Hill Champions, a joint effort of the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce and the Capitol Hill Community Council to advocate for community priorities in the redevelopment of the Broadway Station area. Primary community objectives include a permanent home for the farmers market, affordable housing, community cultural space and affordable space for small businesses.

Park(ing) Day Press

Bootlegged from an email sent out by Max at Feet First.

Media Coverage:

http://mynorthwest.com/category/local_news_articles/20100917/Park(ing)-day-makes-alternative-use-of-spaces/

http://www.king5.com/news/local/Seattle-parking-spaces-turned-into-mini-parks-today-103135239.html

http://www.publicola.net/2010/09/17/parking-day-parks-reclaim-seattle-streets/

http://mayormcginn.seattle.gov/parking-day/

http://seattletransitblog.com/2010/09/17/today-is-parking-day/

http://jackseattle.radio.com/2010/09/16/parking-day-in-seattle/

http://www.q13fox.com/news/kcpq-091809-parkday,0,5093038.story

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2010/09/why_it_was_so_damn_hard_to_fin.php

http://www.westseattleherald.com/2010/09/17/news/parking-day-today-see-it-junction

http://westseattleblog.com/2010/09/parking-day-west-seattle-free-speech-garden-in-the-junction

http://www.centraldistrictnews.com/2010/09/16/parking-day-on-hiawatha-place-jackson-place-neighborhood

http://sdotblog.seattle.gov/2010/09/17/its-parking-day/

http://seattlebikeblog.com/2010/09/17/stop-riding-with-a-squeaky-bike-come-by-the-peoples-parking-lot/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/espressobuzz/sets/72157624977661146/

http://www.djc.com/news/en/12021889.html

Thanks and Congrats!

Thanks to everyone who participated in Park(ing) Day and came out to our Central Park yesterday, despite the gray skies, and congrats to the winners of our design competition. As previously noted, we sent out three judges (plus myself, though I wasn't judging) in a donated Zipcar to take notes on the parks around the city. We made it to almost all the parks but due to a technical difficulty getting out on time, we were not able to make it to quite all the parks. One gentleman was offended by this, and we do apologize, but at the same time want to clarify that the Central Park and awards competition is entirely grassroots, supported by volunteers, and operates on a budget of zero dollars. So if you didn't see us, that's why.

And now to the winners:

Grand Prize: Custom trophy from last year (built by the amazing Web Crowell -- go see his first feature film at NWFF 9/26!) + $200 (in quarters, funded in part by your registration fees for the central park): Olson Kundig Architects.

Best Creative Use of Plants, $100 gift card to Zipcar: Mad Tea Party in the Park, by Mel Burchett and Maureen McGregor.

Best Use of Re-purposed Materials, Intellectual Reading Package from Spine and Crown: ARCADE Journal, Schuchart/Dow, and graypants.

Sportiest Park, Bluebird Ice Cream gift certificate: Alloy Design Group.

Best Ambiance, Hollow Earth Radio T-shirt and On-air Guest Spot: My main man and one of the coolest people I know, JT O'Neill aka JT Hooker from 12hr notice.

Most Contextually Relevant Park, One month of free advertising on Centraldistrictnews.com: Brite Collective.

Best Collaboration, Gift Certificate from Tidbit Bistro and Bike Pad from Caffe Vita: Cascade Land Conservancy

Best Waterfront Reference, Porchlight Coffee gift card: LMN Architects.

Most Low-Impact Park, Gift Certificate from Tidbit Bistro and Bike Pad from Caffe Vita: aLIVe: a Low Impact Vehicle exploration.

Best Costumes, A gift certificate to Emerson Salon for a free haircut: Magic Garden (you might have seen this space across from Vita on Pike...).

Thanks to all the businesses for donating this parade of wonderful prizes and thanks to the builders for making the streets and parking lots of Seattle more interesting for one day. I'll be posting some photos over the next few days too; if you have any you'd like to share, let me know or post them to the facebook group. Thanks!

Park #10 -- aLIVe: a Low Impact Vehicle exploration

I'm happy to announce that Cheryl Dos Remedios -- "a well-placed, well-dressed radical" -- will be bringing her Low Impact Vehicle design exploration to Park(ing) Day Central Park. We are very excited to have her on board and hope the weather cooperates so she can bring the full LIV exploration to our space.

Park(ing) Day Award -- Hollow Earth Radio

If you made it out to Central Park last year, you probably came across Forrest from Hollow Earth Radio: he was recording your deepest and darkest secrets in his confession tent.


[Image by Scott Sands at Cojourn.]

Unfortunately they can't make it out this year because of a retreat, but being the good neighbors and cool folks they are, they have donated a nice little prize package consisting of a t-shirt and a guest spot on the air!