Parks Without Borders – Before / NYC Parks and Recreation

Parks Without Borders  – After / NYC Parks and Recreation

How can we make parks more accessible in the 21st century? How can we use them to build community? Innovators are rethinking what parks can accomplish for communities. The result is some exciting new projects, which were discussed at the Trust for Public Land's recent colloquium on art and parks.

Communities can break down barriers limiting access to parks. Mitchell Silver, the new parks and recreation commissioner in New York City, has released a new approach — Parks Without Borders — that aims to remove physical barriers, like chain-link fences, from the city's parks. The parks and recreation department asked residents which parks would benefit from improved accessibility. Some 6,000 New Yorkers responded with 692 parks that could use improvements, and 8 parks in all boroughs were selected to test the concept. In these pilots, the parks department will test out more accessible entrances, signage, and edges, and better incorporate park-adjacent spaces into parks. As Silver explained, Frederick Law Olmsted, designer of Central Park, said that "the sidewalk next to the park is actually the outer edge of the park." 150 years later the NYC parks department is taking these words to heart to improve community access.

Communities can create their own parks as well, empowering themselves in the process. For Adrian Benepe, Hon. ASLA, former NYC parks and recreation commissioner and now a senior executive at the Trust for Public Land, "cooperative, community-based processes can lead to new and rejuvenated parks" that break down barriers and also reflect local arts and culture. As an example, he pointed the QueensWay in Queens, New York, "the people's High Line," which will eventually run through the most "diverse community on the planet;" some 100 different ethnic groups will line the route. Trust for Public Land is working with the Friends of the QueensWay and other groups to turn 3.5 miles of abandoned railroad track into a "cultural greenway, in addition to a system of green infrastructure."

QueensWay plan / Friends of QueensWay

In Richmond, California, a poor community of about 15,000 to the north of Oakland, there is a high level of gun violence; "in fact, it's the 7th most dangerous community in the U.S," said Toody Maher, the founder of Pogo Park. The city had plopped in $300,000 worth of playground equipment in a local park, which locals then "tagged" with spray paint and tried to burn down. Where others would throw up their hands, Maher saw an opportunity to design a new park with community input. "We realized we needed to build the park from the inside out. Instead of just hiring a landscape architect, the community built a 3D model, actually measuring out in the space what they wanted. " With a $2 million grant from the state parks department, Maher and the Pogo Park neighborhood steering committee hired neighbors of the park to actually build it, even hiring local graffiti artists to become park artists. "Pogo Park is community-designed, built, and installed. It's now a green oasis that radiates change out. Everyone wants to live near the park."

Pogo Park / Richie Unterberger

Jennifer Toy, ASLA, co-founder of Kounkuey Design Initiative (KDI), walked us through another bottom-up community park project in North Shore, California, farm country in the Coachella Valley. Toy spent about a year in the community, listening with no pre-set agenda. Her team eventually found a 3,400-person ghost town "on the periphery of the periphery," a place at the edge of the shrinking Salton Sea, which reeks of decaying fish. While the town received some financing to create a small 1/8-acre park, Toy learned that the park really didn't meet their needs, so, with the community, she co-developed a plan for a 5-acre park over the course of some 150 meetings over multiple years. The result of all this community interaction is a new art series as well as a park design that features "a shaded pavilion, a restroom/bike shop building, soccer field, skate plaza, sport court, playground, walking paths, and native plantings." The park is expected to open later this year.

North Shore design concept / KDI

Lastly, artists can also act as agents of transformation in communities and get people to see their communities in a new light. Streets, another form of public space, can become linear parks that connect people. Seitu Jones, an artist based in St. Paul, Minnesota, creates artistic interventions around the food system. He believes any artist working in a community "must leave it more beautiful than they found it." With his artwork, Create, which launched in 2015, Jones made St. Paul more beautiful by creating a temporary half-mile-long public space in the middle of a street, featuring a half-mile-long table with healthy foods. It took some two years for Jones to reach out to all the communities, bring them to the table, and get the approvals to shut down the street.

Create, St. Paul / Walker Art Center

Jones brought diverse communities "who had forgotten how to cook" together to learn and share.