Seattle experiments with novel ‘parklets’
Print Edition
The box-shaped wood-frame patio, which juts out into a traffic-clogged roadway in the densely populated Capitol Hill neighborhood, is one of Seattle’s “parklets,” with a segment set aside for alcohol consumption.
Under a new city program, it will be converted this summer into one of eight “streateries,” with its entire space opened to microbrew-sipping patrons.
The street eateries are platformed oases with decorative shrubs that semi-permanently usurp one or two parking spaces. Some will be affiliated with restaurants ranging from a taco joint to a posh Middle Eastern restaurant, where servers can bring food and drink to customers seated at tables.
After the businesses close, the spaces will revert to parks open to the public.
“American cities really want to activate the public spaces and streets that for way too long have been given over to the automobile,” said Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, a professor at the University of California Los Angeles, who studies the phenomenon.
“The streateries and parklets are part of this mentality of ‘reclaiming our streets for people’,” she said.
Seattle is among many US cities including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, experimenting with programs that transform curbside parking spaces for public use.
The coast-to-coast movement is traced to the now global annual PARK(ing) Day, launched in San Francisco in 2005, in which artists and residents temporarily transform metered parking spaces into compact patios, gyms or gardens.
Supporters say such reclamation taps into a neighborhood’s vibrancy, adds greenness or a sleek structure to often drab environs, and offers a venue for community togetherness.
Among signs of urban reclamation, the Capitol Hill parklet outside the crowded bar has streaks of graffiti on its wood frame, and a deck dotted with cigarette butts, despite a NO SMOKING sign.
Less than 2 kilometers away, cookie shop owner Robin Wehl Martin, whose customers spill onto the sidewalk some nights, said she too wanted to open a parklet: “With neighbors meeting there and being so social, we want to give them more room.”
Opponents decry greater congestion in dense city pockets and the loss of parking, but also voice concerns about noise, trash and car collisions. A drunken driver plowed into a Los Angeles parklet last summer, although no one was hurt.
Some worry the structures will draw homeless people or drug users, and a radio host slammed the concept as “symptomatic of Seattle’s anti-car bias.”
Ian Eisenberg, a merchant in one gentrifying Seattle neighborhood said he joined other business owners in signing a petition against a parklet outside a nearby cafe.
“We are a fledgling business district... and people still drive here and parking is becoming a real problem,” said Eisenberg.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
