One of our favorite aspects of Park(ing) Day is its international scope. Across the world, people know that street space is public space. Today’s the day they show how it can be re-purposed to provide more than parking. Check out the Park(ing) Day Flickr tag to see some truly impressive curbside installations from places like Krakow, Munich, and San Francisco.

The photos in the slideshow above all come from sites set up by the field offices of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy. Very cool stuff.

Fordham actors play out the thrilling conclusion of a Shakespearean tragedy, just blocks away from Lincoln Center. Photo: Noah Kazis.

In New York City, some of the most active participants in Park(ing) Day, the celebration of on-street public space, are students. The largest street reclamation I saw today was put on by Fordham undergraduates, who converted what looked like three parking spaces into a stage and auditorium for a day of Shakespeare In The Parking Spot.

Architecture students made an impressive stage for Fordham's Shakespeare in the Parking Spot. Photo: Noah Kazis.

Set up as a collaboration between architecture and theater students, elaborate cardboard structures provided seating as actors staged scenes and soliloquies above the din of Columbus Avenue traffic. Signs like “To Park or Not To Park?” added a bit of extra wit to the event, though I was disappointed not to see any play on Lady Macbeth’s “Out Damned Spot” monologue.

Columbia planning students imagined their parking space as a fire escape being used for urban agriculture. Photo: Noah Kazis

Further uptown, Columbia’s urban planning students compared the area of a parking space to the area of a fire escape, arguing that both were underutilized urban spaces. They created their own fire escape on the side of Broadway, complete with clothesline and urban agriculture.

Barnard's Eco-Reps host a curbside campfire. Photo: Noah Kazis.

Barnard’s Eco-Reps drew their Park(ing) Day inspiration from the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. After the storm passed, they gathered the branches and stumps left where trees had been damaged and imagined their campus as a camp site. Sitting on those logs this morning, they made s’mores on the side of the road while handing out environmental information to passersby.

The forecast is sunny and seasonable for Park(ing) Day 2011 here in New York City, so get ready to enjoy the annual celebration of the public spaces that are our neighborhood streets. At 34 locations in all five boroughs, New Yorkers will be taking over curbside parking spaces with installations that are by turns relaxing, playful, political and creative.

Some of the parking spaces will be used to showcase visions for even bigger changes to the transportation system. “Out With The Sheridan Distress-Way” will be found on the Bronx’s Southern Boulevard between Aldus Street and E. 163rd, while a “Vision of a North Shore Waterfront Greenway” will sit at the intersection of Bay Street and St. Mark’s Place on Staten Island. The “parking (e)scape” set up by Columbia urban planners on Broadway between 113th and 114th Streets sounds restful. “WonderWander,” found on Amsterdam Avenue between 83rd and 84th, is just plain intriguing. The full list can be found here for those looking for a nearby spot.

Park(ing) Day isn’t just a New York City celebration, or even an American one. The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, for example, is participating in Park(ing) Day projects in Buenos Aires and Rosario, Argentina; Bogotá, Columbia; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Ahmedabad, India; Jakarta, Indonesia; and Mexico City. We’ll be bringing you the best park-ins from around the globe tomorrow, so stay tuned.

Two 25th Street residents sit in a makeshift "micropark" in an Eighth Avenue island. Under a proposal to build 100 public spaces in on-street parking spots, one Chelsea group envisions a variety of more comfortable options around every corner. Photo: Park Chelsea

This Friday, New Yorkers will take part in Park(ing) Day, repurposing dozens of parking spaces around the city to show what you can do with valuable curbside real estate besides storing cars. Last year, participants set up everything from “alternate side mulching” to an entire dorm room, complete with walls and a television set, to help New Yorkers re-imagine the potential uses of their streets.

One New Yorker who needs no help re-imagining the curb is Arnold Bob, who prefers to go by “Ranger Bob, commissioner of Park Chelsea.” As reported by DNAinfo’s Matthew Katz, he’s proposing to turn one parking space on every block from 14th to 34th Streets, between Fifth Avenue and the Hudson River, into a what he calls a micropark. All told, it would add up to more than 100 small-scale public spaces where neighbors could meet up, take a breather, or plant a garden.

Bob started lobbying for the microparks after realizing that they offered a way to resolve one of the neighborhood’s most intractable planning disputes. “In Chelsea, there was a debate going on over affordable housing versus parks,” he explained. “I could get affordable housing done and parks at the same time.” All it would take is a willingness to rethink street space — leave the developable land for housing, and put the parks next to the curb.

Park Chelsea, Bob’s organization, has already set up their own permanent micropark — not in a parking spot but on the planted section of an Eighth Avenue pedestrian island. The Eighth and Ninth Avenue redesigns, or as Bob called them, “greenways,” could be just the beginning of bringing public pedestrian space to the streetbed in Chelsea.

His ideal microparks, he said, would have protective fencing and public seating like New York’s pop-up cafés, as well as features like community bulletin boards and green infrastructure to prevent stormwater overflows from dumping sewage into the Hudson. “If you put these on every block,” said Bob, “you’ll have a park within a one or two minute walk of everybody.”

Ranger Bob said he’s spoken with Community Board 4 about the proposal. They were supportive of the concept, though skeptical of its feasibility at full scale. With only a handful of pop-up cafés in place so far, they’re probably right that 100 is a distant goal. Still, Bob has a plan to win over opponents who don’t want to see fewer parking spaces: Pair each micropark with on-street space for car-share vehicles. Bob argued that the addition of each shared car would make up for the removal of multiple parking spaces for personal vehicles — a tradeoff he believes can create some physical and political room for his vision.

Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

City planners often get very little public recognition for the work they do, and can sometimes take the heat on a project if it doesn’t prove politically popular. In the case of San Francisco’s revolutionary Pavement to Parks program, the early resistance to reclaiming public space from cars to create convivial spaces for people has gradually subsided and parklets are now in heavy demand. None of it would have been possible without the hard work and determination of Andres Power, an urban designer for the San Francisco Planning Department.

As the manager of the P2P program, Power has spent tireless hours managing the city’s initial plaza and parklet projects and moving them through the vast city bureaucracy. He deals regularly with merchants, neighbors and community groups. He’s worn a hardhat on many a Saturday and is the guy who gets called at midnight if something goes wrong.  Power’s unwavering dedication, even in the face of fierce opposition, has made him one of the unsung heroes of San Francisco’s livable streets movement.

Along with some of his colleagues at the Planning Department, Power is working from within to change the dysfunctional and old-school culture of city government with an eye to then transform our streets. The Pavement to Parks program is now catching the attention of cities all over the U.S. Last week, San Francisco issued a new request for parklet proposals, which means they’ll be spreading to even more neighborhoods.

Power was born in San Francisco and grew up in the East Bay city of Albany. I sat down with him recently to find out more about his interest in urban planning, and his involvement in the Pavement to Parks program.

Bryan Goebel: What sparked your interest in city planning?

Andres Power: I’ve always loved cities. Being in a place that’s dynamic and changing and exciting has always been something that has intrigued me. I’ve tried to think back and to figure out what my motivators were and I think I just landed in the right place, to be honest. I had some great professors in undergrad at Brown University that really were forward and progressive thinking and inspired me. Then, after undergraduate, I went and worked in New York at the Department of Housing and Preservation doing economic development for the city and it was just an amazing place to be. It was so crazy and frantic, such a huge and complicated bureaucracy, but still, individual people could make amazing changes.

Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

BG: So this was in your early 20s? You must have graduated from college early then?

AP: I graduated from Brown when I was 20. I was young for my age because I skipped a grade early on. So yes, I graduated early and worked for New York for, I guess, three and a half years. It was a really fun place to be, and I moved my way up through the system there and I was actually working in the Section Eight program. It was tangential to my interest but it was a fascinating work with a lot of smart people and it just really cemented my love for cities. It was so satisfying knowing that as a bureaucrat, I could make positive change for people.

BG:  Yeah, and I imagine living in New York deepened and inspired your interest in urban planning.

AP: Absolutely. There’s no question about it. At that time it was right after 911, so it was early 2002. The offices were four blocks from the World Trade Center so it was an interesting place to be, for sure, and the focus was really on emergency management type stuff, at first, and then things calmed down, and it was much more about starting to think about the future, and looking at the long-terms goals of the city. The notion of working for an entity that is thinking about what the future’s going to be in 20-25 years, and doing things in the short-term, to move us in that direction is incredibly satisfying. That’s what I do here now. It’s really about seeing what we want this city to look like, how we want it to function, how we want it to be for the next generation and working on the immediate steps to make improvements that move us in that direction.

BG: So you spent three and a half years in New York City, and then went to grad school at MIT for two years?

AP: Two years, yes.  MIT was an interesting place for sure. The urban studies program was somewhat isolated from the rest of the university but was still a crazy place. The buildings were all connected underground by these tunnels and there’d gatherings sometimes on the weekend in the tunnels where people would all dress up in Star Trek attire. So, a lot of the stereotypes that you would think of for MIT, definitely a lot of that happened there. It’s also a great place to be. People were really smart, really motivated and undoubtedly the program really cemented the notion that this is really what it was that intrigued me.

BG: So after MIT what happened?

AP: Getting a job anywhere in government takes a lot of time so the beginning of my last semester, in January or so, there was a posting for jobs here in San Francisco. I applied and actually got called back sooner than I’d anticipated, came out here over spring break, had an interview, had a second interview and was hired as an entry level urban designer for the San Francisco Planning Department.

BG: What exactly were you hired to do?

AP: The first thing I did was to come up with a streetscape plan for San Jose Avenue. It was a good first stab at doing this type of work and getting to learn the dynamics and the politics here. I remember going out with then Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval in his personal car. He took me down and showed me what he thought needed improvement. It was great, understanding the craziness and how the system in the city works, and how the public realm is managed by so many different agencies and entities. It was an eye-opening experience. Then from there I started doing a lot of graphics type stuff and early plan development for the Rincon Hill streetscape plan and the Better Streets Plan.

Photo: Myleen Hollero/Orange Photography

BG: So how did Pavements to Parks get started? It all pretty much began with the 17th Street plaza, right?

AP: Yes. I’d been working with Adam Varat on content development for the Better Streets Plan for a couple of years at that point, and in that plan there was a lot of discussion about temporary uses of the right of way. What that meant wasn’t fully fleshed out but the idea was to be playful with the public realm and to think about uses that perhaps changed over time. Being creative in how we use a parking lane, for example, was particularly exciting to me. Then, New York City Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Kahn came and met with the different department directors and basically challenged the city to do something. She came and presented the work that she was doing to DPW Director Ed Reiskin, my director, John Rahim, and [SFMTA Chief] Nat Ford and the representatives of the Mayor’s Office and said, ‘This is what we’re doing in New York,’ which was a challenge to do something similar over here.

So, in response to that challenge, all the different departments submitted a list of possible projects based on culling the archives of community plans and public efforts. So that project, the Castro 17th project, was one that had been advanced by a couple of agencies. With DPW and MTA we moved it forward. This was around the same time that the Upper Market Streetscape Plan was being worked on and it talked a lot about making improvements to that intersection. So, it just sort of all came together, and [City Design Group Manager] David Alumbaugh felt very strongly that we should start off with something bold, making the subsequent projects easier by comparison. It was a smart move to make. As small as it is, the Plaza location was as complicated as one can be, with the streetcar going right through and cars coming from just about every direction. But we knew that the users were there, and that the community was generally on board with it. At the same time Public Architecture came to the city and was offering its services to help with a public space project.

“I think in my mind the most beneficial change is really pushing the city family to be okay with experimentation.”

Change is always hard. Beyond the actual projects that the Pavement to Parks program has installed, I think in my mind the most beneficial change is really pushing the city family to be okay with experimentation. At Castro, how a trial plaza could come together was incredibly challenging for the bureaucracy to wrap its collective head around. So the proposal languished. Getting approvals was incredibly difficult. But finally, with some colleagues we thought, ‘we’re just going to get this done, this is ridiculous,’ and we got it done. Once the project was installed some department heads came together with the Mayor’s Office to talk about what we learned and what the next steps were. Basically, what came out of that meeting was that we needed someone who would be empowered to just make things happen and someone who ultimately would be responsible for delivering the projects. So, they put me in charge and that’s how the program came to be.

Power with architect Jane Martin constructing the Guerrero Park plaza. Photo: Jamison Wieser

BG: What do you see as some of your biggest challenges now?

AP: Amongst the city family, I think generally speaking that there is alignment with what it is that we’re doing, but not everyone necessarily agrees 100 percent, or is as gung-ho about this work as I am. It’s incredibly difficult to get people to just say, ‘this is how we’re going to make it happen.’ The culture has been changing and it’s gotten much better, at least in a relative sense over the last number of years, but the culture’s always been, ‘no, you can’t do it and this is why.’ It’s never been, ‘This is what you want to do, let’s figure out how we’re going to make it happen.’ And as for design, it’s always been the common denominator that gets implemented. Everyone has to weigh in. Muni weighs in, the traffic engineer weighs in, the utilities weight in, the street sweeper weighs in. Then once you’ve resolved all of their individual concerns, you have your end product. That’s how things have been done historically, but at the end of the day that end product doesn’t necessarily advance the city’s collective goals. The most challenging piece is getting the projects through a system that is not geared to making these kinds of things happen in an easy way.

BG: What about the occasional opposition that arises from merchants, or neighbors, like what happened in Noe Valley?

AP: Not every project is going to work and I think it’s great, ultimately, that people speak up for what they believe. I may not necessarily agree with that position, and I may know their arguments are technically incorrect, but at the same time, I think it’s perfectly legitimate for people to not want something and I think that’s just part of the way things are in a heterogeneous community. Generally speaking, most people want urban public spaces, most people want open space, most people want amenities, most people want bicycle infrastructure, most people want storm water improvements. So, it’s not convincing people of the merits of that per se. A lot of it has to do with disagreements between one neighbor and another so these kinds of projects can become the polarizing element for that. I have no problem with this reality, and it’s why cities ultimately are fun places to work in. It’s not like working in the suburbs where you have a much more homogenous perspective on things.

“The culture’s always been, ‘no, you can’t do it and this is why.’ It’s never been, ‘This is what you want to do, let’s figure out how we’re going to make it happen.’ “

BG: I was walking on Dolores Street recently and had an encounter with a woman who was walking her dog and was just furious the city had removed a parking space in front of her house to install a crosswalk. There’s a ‘war on drivers,’ she exclaimed.  In your role as a planner, and this is a difficult question, but how do we win the hearts and minds of people like that who don’t feel like they want to give up any space for cars?

AP: It’s not an easy answer. If we knew the answer to that, then we’d be golden. I think there’s a couple of things at play. In large part our work is about education and we’re not always good at that. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not the best. I think generally the city family’s not very good at it, but really what we ought to be doing, as people who are paid to be thinking about the future, is tailoring our messaging in an understandable way and to be able to explain why it is we’re doing the things that we’re doing. So, I think a lot of it is education. Some people may just fundamentally disagree with your position and that’s okay. But many people, when you have an informed and rational discussion about the merits of an effort, can ultimately become your best supporters. But specifically when trade offs involve a car, I think unfortunately people can become very passionate about it.

BG: Emotions can get in the way.

AP: It’s very emotional, yes, and so to a certain extent you have to do your very best to educate, and to be that facilitator and explain what it is that you’re doing, and why you’re doing it, and what the benefits are for each person because ultimately it’s not just about taking away something from one person, and giving it to another. It’s about advancing our collective benefit. I think any type of change can be difficult for people, but at the same time, I do believe that delivering good projects and being able to show, for example, the lady with her dog, that benefit to her as she’s trying to cross the street. There really is an immediate benefit to her. She’s probably much less likely to get hit by a speeding car. Her dog is less likely to get run over because of that improvement that was made.  So, it wasn’t just about taking a parking space away, it was about making her condition better. I think the city is not the best at making this understood, although we’re constantly working to improve our communication.

Enjoying a light moment in the Castro plaza while shooting a Streetfilm. From left, Power, City Design Group Manager David Alumbaugh and filmmaker Paul Jaffe. Photo: Bryan Goebel

BG: Where do you see the Pavements to Parks program going?

AP: That’s a good question. The Pavements to Parks program has been really focused as of late on getting the parklets up and running. I think we’ve done that. I think we’ve created a model that is sustainable for the long term. We’ve done a lot of work, with great help from the Department of Public Works, the MTA and the SF Great Streets Project, to come up with the mechanisms to evaluate these projects and facilitate them because at the end of the day we want to be encouraging this. We want the city structure to be set up in such a way that it’s incentivizing and not making it difficult to make public improvements.  So, with that under our belt, to a certain extent the question now becomes, what’s next? Are there going to be more plazas? Are we going to be doing some other design typology perhaps that we haven’t even thought about yet? I think the answer to that ought to be yes. Aside from the physical projects that Pavement to Parks has produced, which I think are great things, one of the amazing contributions it’s provided is showing that experimentation is a good thing, and how it can produce good stuff. The vehicle of Pavement to Parks, this interagency cooperation, can apply to anything. Theoretically, it could apply to innovative treatments of a bike lane, or whatever it is we want to try. The structure of Pavement to Parks is such that the actual physical improvement can be anything, but the process to get it on the ground is really about what Pavements to Parks provides, and it’s an expedited process. I think it’s a great example of what happens when people come together saying, ‘We want to get this done, how are we going to make it happen,’ as opposed to figuring out a way why you can’t.

I think the streets of our city ought to be designed for the kind of use that provides the most benefit to the most people, both at the local level, and ultimately on a global level because what is sustainable in the long term is a city that encourages and gives priority to people who want to walk and who want to move around in a way that doesn’t produce an externality on somebody else. Unfortunately, for the last 50 years, it’s been the opposite. We have been prioritizing the mode of transport that provides the most externalities on people, and so I think a long-term vision for the city is one in which the fabric really is about the best common good. I think for me what that means is a place where driving is a last option. I think we’ve got a long way to go to get there, while, at the same time, I do feel like there will always be the need for a vehicle. I have to remember to say that because I do believe it. I think whether it’s a solar powered car or whatever it is, ultimately there is a need for transport of kids and goods but as a primary transportation mode, I think that there isn’t room for that in the city.

BG: What advice would you have for other cities looking to do parklets and plazas and repurpose space for people?

AP: Start with the location, either for a plaza or a parklet, that you know will be successful. One that has a strong on the ground partner who is vested in helping ensure that the space is successful. This is absolutely key as the success of the first installation sets the groundwork for many more. Also, don’t expect to create a program first. Start with a great project that people will be excited about and the the program will follow. Get authority from the very top – you’ll need it – so that you can push through the inevitable red tape. Also, have an answer to the inevitable questions that will come up. “Putting a parklet in will make the cross section of the street too narrow for a fire truck.” Remind the reviewer that a parklet is no wider than a parked car.  If it’s okay that a car is parked there, why can’t people sit there too. Celebrate the first project. From there, the next installations become easier.

The businesses next to the city's first pop-up cafe, on Pearl Street, say it's been a boon for foot traffic and profits. Photo: NYC DOT

A few months after launching the city’s first “pop-up café“ on Pearl Street in Lower Manhattan, NYC DOT is putting out a call to other businesses who might be interested in reclaiming curbside spaces to make way for seasonal sidewalk extensions, tables, and seating. The department announced today that it’s seeking applications [PDF] to expand the pop-up café program to as many as 12 locations throughout the five boroughs next year.

Implicit in the program is the message that foot traffic and high-quality public space have greater value for street-level businesses than car storage. The two restaurants who sponsored the Pearl Street project, Fika Espresso Bar and Bombay’s, say business is up as much as 14 percent since the pop-up café was installed in August, according to DOT’s press release.

“Small businesses are the backbone of New York City’s economy and we need to do everything we can to help them through today’s difficult economic climate,” said DOT Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan in a statement. “The City’s first Pop-up Café has been both an innovative public space and also an economic boon, and now enterprises across the city can buy in to this cost-effective, creative use of our streets.”

In San Francisco, where curbside reclamation projects are called “parklets,” the planning department released a similar request earlier this year after piloting the idea in two locations. The original inspiration for both programs, of course, is Park(ing) Day, which was recently observed for the fifth year in cities around the world.

The NYC public space expansions will be available to restaurants on streets where regular sidewalk café licenses are not permitted, and which have the support of the local community board to reclaim the curb. Restaurants have to apply by December 3 to be considered for next year’s program.

Park(ing) Day keeps getting bigger every year. Since starting in 2005, it has grown each year; last year 700 parks were set up in 140 cities on all six continents. This year, it might be even bigger.

And in the last year, the governments of San Francisco and New York City, at least, have made the idea behind the event part of city policy. “Parklets” and “pop-up cafés” have been installed in both of those cities right in the middle of a line of parallel parkers, giving the official stamp of approval to the idea that curbside space might not always be best used for storing automobiles.

So as you look through this slideshow of some Park(ing) Day highlights from around the country and the world, ask yourself: Which of these cities and towns will be the next to make Park(ing) Day permanent?

To find more pics, check out the parkingday tag on Flickr and on Twitter and be sure to submit your own.

"Pick a Room Kid" at Broadway and 113th recreated an entire dorm room. Photo: Noah Kazis

Here at 113th and Broadway, the curb is normally used to house an empty car. After being transformed by a team of Columbia planning students, however, it could provide a downright luxurious living space for normally-cramped students. The makeshift dorm room had two walls, a TV and cabinet space, a four-poster bed and, on the table, a copy of The High Cost of Free Parking.

Free bike-powered smoothies are available at 116th and Broadway. Photo: Noah Kazis

A few blocks further north, another group of Columbia students offered any passerby a free smoothie, with the blender powered by bike. Just to the right of the blender was a fully sodded seating area, in heavy use.

Barnard's EcoReps set up this Park(ing) space at Broadway and 117th. Photo: Noah Kazis

Completing the Morningside Heights trio of Park(ing) Day sites was this tent, with free baked goods, music, and a piñata, set up by Barnard’s EcoReps. Not only did students walking by stop to chat, it appeared to be a popular spot to get some homework done.

The Upper West Side Streets Renaissance space at 95th and Columbus. Photo: Noah Kazis

A younger crowd enjoyed this Park(ing) space at 95th and Columbus, across from the Upper West Side’s new protected bike lane. With a train set and coloring supplies, kids could design what they’d like to see their neighborhood look like. In the spirit of Park(ing) Day, the expansion of play streets was one prominent request.

'Alternate Side Mulching is in Effect Today!' will be in effect today on Vernon Boulevard until 6 p.m. Photo: wqnscompost/twitpic

On a day when street trees all over Brooklyn and Queens have been ripped out of their pits, shorn of their limbs, or cracked in two, “Alternate Side Mulching is in Effect Today!” seems like the right choice to kick off our Park(ing) Day photographic coverage. This installation on Vernon Boulevard between 48th Ave and 49th Ave is a collaboration between the Queens Botanical Garden, the NYC Compost Project, and MillionTreesNYC. Here’s their description from the official map of Park(ing) Day 2010:

Our park(ing) spot focuses on the importance of street tree care and composting in the city. The majority of the parking spot will demonstrate the drip-line of a street tree and the point to which it’s roots would extend in a natural environment. We will be mulching this entire area. With the tree, we will have information on MillionTreesNYC and offer mini-street tree care workshops throughout the day. We will also be highlighting composting in the city with the NYC Compost Project in Queens. We will be demonstrating indoor and outdoor composting, providing literature and have supplies to make compost cookies. The livable streets concepts that we are focusing on are: storm water run-off, urban waste reduction, daylighting corners, extending green space and the importance of street trees to our health and well-being.

We’ll have more Park(ing) Day pics throughout the day. If you’ve got photos you want to share, tag them “Streetsblog” on Flickr or holler @StreetsblogNYC.

Parking Day 2008, West 88th Street. Photo: Brad Aaron

Get ready to reclaim your curb tomorrow. It’s Park(ing) Day, the annual celebration of streets as public spaces. This year, 51 parking spaces in the five boroughs will be liberated from the chore of private car storage and given over to the full creativity of New Yorkers. Here are a few choice concepts:

• “South Bronx Open Space” — Southern Boulevard between 163rd and Aldus. Learn about plans to replace the Sheridan Expressway with open space, housing and jobs and to build a South Bronx Greenway. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• “Cortelyou Road Park” — Cortelyou Road between Argyle and Rugby, Brooklyn. Real grass, games, snacks, and live music. 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• “Shakespeare in the Parking Spot” — Ninth Avenue at 60th Street, Manhattan. Fordham theater students perform in a space designed by Fordham architecture students. 7 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• “Alternate Side Mulching Is In Effect Today” — Vernon Avenue between 48th Ave and 49th Ave, Queens. Learn how to take care of street trees and make compost cookies. 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.
• “Recycle Geoff’s Stuff” — Bay Street between Victory Blvd and Hannah, Staten Island. Bringing stoop sales to the street.

For a complete guide to Park(ing) Day sites, the organizers have put together this handy map.

After covering PARK(ing) Day events since 2006, this year we took it down a notch. We figured it was about time we got to relax a little and enjoy the space and -- frankly -- not get dehydrated from bicycling about all day. So sit back and enjoy.

This year more than 20 countries participated. New York City featured about 50 spaces filled to the gills with people, sod, chairs, food, fun, games, and, in one case, bubble-wrap galore! You'll also get a look at "Hex Pack Patio," the POP.Park design competition winner from Samina Iqbal.

After the jump, more scenes from Park(ing) Day in San Francisco, courtesy of John Hamilton.

New Yorkers were again granted gorgeous Park(ing) Day weather today. Here's a sampling of reader-submitted photos from local space-reclamation festivities, plus a bonus shot from down in DC.

Keep an eye out for late additions to the Park(ing) Day NYC Flickr and Twitter feeds, and if you're looking for more pics from other locales, you can start here.

Enjoy the weekend, and Shana Tova.

In preparation for Park(ing) Day festivities tomorrow, here's a flashback to last year. If you're setting up a spot, or will be hanging out in one or more the 50-plus spaces to be reclaimed for the day, share your photos with us by tagging them "parkingdaynyc" and "streetsblog" on Flickr. We'll be posting pics from across the boroughs.

Transportation Alternatives will also unveil the winner of the POP.Park competition on St. Marks Place between First and Second Avenues.

See you at the park, wherever it may be.

We've got a date for the third annual Park(ing) Day NYC festivities: September 18. For those unfamiliar with Park(ing) Day, it's kind of like the Christmas of livable streets. Or maybe Sukkot is a better analogy. Parking spaces all over the city will be converted to mini-parks and pedestrian zones. For a day, the potential to re-program space for cars as space for people feels much more tangible.

Each year the designs get a little more creative, and people in more cities participate. This time around there's a new wrinkle. Transportation Alternatives is organizing a competition called POP.Park in search of a portable, low-cost, pre-fab design for a Park(ing) spot conversion. These are the rules TA has laid out:

• POP.Parks must fold into a box, reusable bag or tote that one person can carry while walking or riding public transportation.
• Building materials that have little impact on the environment are encouraged.
• When assembled, POP.Parks should be no larger than 8'x15' - the size of a parking spot.
• Materials can be found or purchased, but must not exceed $20 in cost.

The deadline for entries is September 1, with finalists invited to set up their designs on Park(ing) Day. The winner will be selected, American Idol style, through a text message vote. Creative people: Feeling up to the challenge? Here are the details.

Sunday marks the 14th Annual Tour de Bronx, a free bike ride tailored to all ages and skill levels. Participants in the 25-mile ride will be escorted by ride marshals and police, and there is a 40-mile route for experienced cyclists. Check-in times range from 8 to 10 a.m., depending on the starting point.

The Tour de Bronx is co-sponsored by Transportation Alternatives and Bronx Borough President Adolfo Carrion. See the Streetfilm of last year's ride here.

Image: Transportation Alternatives

Four strangers engaged in an intense Scrabble game at the busy corner of Atlantic Ave. and Court St. in Downtown Brooklyn, my first stop.

The Park(ing) spot on Montague St. in Brooklyn Heights was jam packed with teenagers from St. Anne's on their lunch break. These two played Connect Four.

The Montague St. spot was designed to accommodate all ages...

...and all species.

In Manhattan, this Park(ing) spot next to Noguchi's Red Cube on Broadway and Liberty offered fine halal food and a front row seat to the global financial metldown.

In Soho, on Thompson between Prince and Spring, DEGW's "City in a Box" spot was exceptionally pleasant.

Over on LaGuardia Place, a block away from NYU, the owner of Washington Square Wine and Liquor argued with these Park(ers) from the Center for Architecture that the loss of this parking spot was hurting his business. Forget that only six percent of Soho shopping trips are done by car -- I didn't have the heart to tell this upstanding merchant that if he's having trouble selling liquor on a Friday afternoon in the middle of a college campus, Park(ing) Day is the least of his problems.  

There was less controversy on Sixth Ave. near W. 4th St. where NYU Wagner School students sunned themselves, tossed beanbags and provided cool drinks to passersby.

Christine Berthet and Ian Dutton (standing and talking at left) represented Manhattan Community Boards 2 and 4 over on Eighth Ave. and 14th St. That's Ian's wife Shea on the bench with the incredible red hair.

And explaining all of this to New Yorkers via NY1 was Streetswiki producer Lily Bernheimer at The Open Planning Project's super-high concept "Open Source City Park" spot on 8th Ave. and 15th St.

One week from today, on September 19, New Yorkers will stake their claim to some of the city's most valuable, yet cheapest, real estate in celebration of Park(ing) Day.

For the uninitiated, Park(ing) Day entails the reclamation of public space by setting up temporary parks in on-street parking spots. Here's the skinny on the 2008 edition from the Park(ing) Day NYC web site:

This year, Park(ing) Day NYC will double the fun with double the locations: 50+ parks in the Brooklyn, the Bronx, Manhattan and Queens. In addition, park builders are putting new emphasis on site-specific designs that will reflect the social, cultural and architectural contexts in which they're situated, as well as generate innovative proof-of-concept designs for permanent public space reclamation. Seating areas, art installations, and community engagement will all make the case for a more sensible and human-friendly distribution of available urban public space.

Park(ing) Day 2008 will be followed on October 18 by Park(ing) Day REDUX, featuring a rebuild of selected spots along with photos and other media from this year's event, in front of EYEBEAM Art and Technology Center on 21st Street.

With more locations to choose from this year, and Summer Streets having whetted appetites for car-free street space, can NYC finally outdo San Francisco in (Park)ing Day participation?

Photo: Keka Marzagão via Sustainable Flatbush/Flickr

Streetfilms is celebrating its first-ever foreign language translation with this video, of last year's (Park)ing Day, subtitled in Spanish. Clarence Eckerson says to expect three more Spanish subtitled vids to be posted in the coming weeks.

And speaking of (Park)ing Day, the 2008 event is just a couple of weeks away. Volunteer or reserve your spot today.

Mark September 19 on your calendars. That's when Park(ing) Day returns to New York. Last year, neighborhood groups all over the city got into the street reclamation groove, converting 25 parking spots into temporary parks. Park(ing) Day 2008 figures to be even more visible. Fifty spots will be set aside to show how public street space can be put to better use than storing cars.

If you want to get in on the action, the Park(ing) Day organizers have set up a handy website where you can apply for a space. The deadline to apply is August 8, and mini-grants are available for materials and supplies. Call me a Park(ing) Day traditionalist, but I'm partial to the spots that roll out some nice, cushy sod.