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It's PARK(ing) Day from the Rebar group! They set up a veritable oasis at a West 30th Street and Eighth Avenue parking spot. Our friend at Transportation Alternative sent us this picture - note the high production value: Bench, trees, and three people! We're not sure if the space is still there (we heard it would be up until noon or 2PM), so if you work near there, swing by and let us know.
More: In January, Rebar did the parking squat thing in San Francisco; Transportation Alternatives did one in October 2005; and Streetsblog has some more insights.
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Arrgh...more idiotic, self righteous hipster stunt. Hope the truck behind them pour some cement on their heads!
Dunno Dude, looks pretty funny to me.
News for you, Dude: This is a major movement underway here. The "hipsters" on the bench are essentially determining the direction of NYC policy in the coming years. Check out Bloomberg's speech this afternoon if you have any doubts about that.
All demonstrations are seen as idiotic by people who don't share the goals of the demonstrators. I thought it was idiotic when Microsoft paraded people in butterfly suits through Manhattan to advertise MSN. I don't see the distinction here. A group has an agenda and is trying to promote it through various means. This is a relatively innocuous means. I'm not sure I understand the venom directed their way. Granted, I personally share their agenda, but I didn't go spitting venom at Microsoft when they pulled their stupid PR stunt. And theirs was only for personal gain; this one is not to make money for the people doing it. Seems less offensive to me.
Yeah, it's hilarious...as long as you're not looking for a space, or need to cross the street, or have to fight your way through a pack of tourists who think this kind of crap is adorable.
Reclaiming public space that our taxes pay for. I like.
#6 - I think there's a good chance that the motorists who were prevented from parking in that space also pay taxes.
I am all for more public parks and bike lanes, and less car traffic and pollution, but I just seriously doubt the effectiveness of these publicity "stunts" in general.
If you're looking to park your car at 30th and 8th on a weekday, you deserve all the extra trouble you could get.
Also, wouldn't it be easier to cross the street if those people are in the place of something like a box truck?
Irritated, parking is not the inalienable right of New Yorkers, or even worse, non-city residents. In most cities around the country, street parking requires a neighborhood or city parking permit. Why should New York be any different?
hey dude,
stop the hate.
This is obviously one guy upset with what's going on in the picture and he/she loves to drive his SUV through the urban jungle to pick up groceries or a movie at a store that's 200 yards away.
We need to start charging money by the hour for people who drive into the city and even more if there's only one person in the car. Stand on the west side highway and count how many cars have more than one person in it. I'll be surprised if you run out of fingers to count on.
What?
***In most cities around the country, street parking requires a neighborhood or city parking permit. Why should New York be any different?
[9] Posted by: ianqui | September 21, 2006 1:40 PM
Seems the happy campers are getting far more use out of the parking space than anyone's vacant auto.
Besides, there's this extra lane on 8th ave that everyone uses to park their cars and trucks in. I think the city calls it a bike lane for some strange reason but everyone knows that its really for taxis to pick up passengers, trucks to unload in, and everyone else to double park in.
I thought the modus operandi of this portable park stuff is that they paid the meter and followed the appropriate rules, like the hour-limits. They just don't use the rented space for car parking.
j.b.
Yeah, much better to have some random, empty vehicle taking up that space then 3 people who seem to be enjoying themselves. /Sarcasm
"Yeah, it's hilarious...as long as you're not looking for a space, or need to cross the street, or have to fight your way through a pack of tourists who think this kind of crap is adorable."
You need to lighten up or move to Montana because you just described the day to day life of everyone that works and lives in Manhattan. If one light-hearted obstruction, which effectively causes no more inconvenience than _another_ parked car, is going to make you so "irritated", you're going to have a nervous breakdown before too long.
Of course, it's a metered spot, so they are breaking the rules. You are supposed to only stay until the max time and then get the hell out of there. (That's what it means when people say "feeding the meter" is illegal.)
The day NYC paves central park and turns in into a parking lot, this protest will have a point.
Ahhhhhh. Watch them breathe in all those fresh healthy carcinogens from the city trucks passing nearby.
How refreshing!
why can't the entire city be just one long sprawling concrete slab for me to elbow my way through?
They look like the type of people whose every sentence ends in a question mark.
I used to work in this neighborhood, and found it a pretty depressing place after a while. It's amazing how a green space — less then 100 sq feet, I bet, brightens up the entire block.
I know this guy in the tie? He doesn't end every sentence in a question mark? In fact, he knows that declarative lilts are more impressive to the ladies? And the ladies love him?
On another note, did you see that in San Francisco, the mayor gave up his personal parking spot for the Park(ing) event?
That last sentence was supposed to end with an interrogatory?
"The day NYC paves central park and turns in into a parking lot, this protest will have a point."
Acutally, Central Park, which is supposed to be an urban oasis of sorts, is open to automobile traffic for most of every weekday. If hundreds of taxis and cars can speed through the park poluting it and confining runners, walkers, and others to narrow bike/running lanes, then three hipsters lounging in a parking space seems perfectly reasonable by comparison.
it was still there around 2:00pm
#22, excellent point.
I don't know why some of you are getting your thongs in a bunch over this...what about private construction that takes up "valuable" parking space? I'm not going to cry over one less space for someone driving a vehicle into the city.
I'd love to see it somewhere every day!
Dude #7 - they probably don't pay NYC taxes. Most people in NYC don't own an automobile. If they want to use our space, they should pay something closer to market value for the real estate they're using.
And we should make public transportation better so they can still commute to/shop in the city...
Sadly, at least a small fraction of Prospect Park is open to cars every single hour of every single day, including weekends. (The area near the skating rink.) That's just sad, and certainly not what the original planners had in mind. I'm not sure why able-bodied people need to drive into a park!
Murray, I'm touched that you're so concerned for my well-being. I really am. You are more than welcome to marvel at morons sitting on a bench in the gutter and call it art. You probably think graffiti livens things up, too. As far as my irritation goes, I was born here. It's my birthright.
"As far as my irritation goes, I was born here. It's my birthright."
OOOH! I was wondering how long it would take for the inevitable "I was born here, so my opinion takes precedence" retort.
I was born and raised here, but that doesn't make my opinion take precedence over anyone else here. However, being born/raised here gives me and anyone else who was born/raised here a perspective that someone from somewhere else will never have. When I meet people in other parts of the country/world and find out that they're from NYC, I usually follow up with this question: Were you born there ? I just want to know if they share that same perspective like me. As for "hipsters" dictating policy in this city, all I have to say is "the only constant in this world is change".
Yeah... when I was born in NYC in 1970, NYC was just reaching its peak as a bankrupt, dysfunctional, arson-ridden, crap hole thanks, in no small part, to the car-dominated public works of the mid-20th century that destroyed the fabric of neighborhoods throughout the city. That's the REAL NYC and it should stay that way.
I don't really understand what people have against tourists and people from out of town visiting New York. Last time I checked tourists fueled a lot of New York's economy. If you don't like tourists or people coming into your neighborhoods why don't you move to a place where people are less likely to visit. Out here in Queens for example.
Now that Moynihan Station is not going to be built and NY waterway Ferry raised prices to 9 dollars one way from Jersey City to Manhattan, you are probably better off driving in from New Jersey. A "Congestion Tax" would stop working class people, delivery trucks, from driving into the city, but would not stop the rich people from driving everywhere. Also many of the new super rich moving into manhattan have cars and insist on driving everywhere in the city.
I agree that less cars are better, but there are other ways. For example, you can dedicate one lane on every avenue just for buses and emergency vechiles.
well...cheers to those who appreciated this temporary park designed to improve urban human habitat. cars spend 95% of their lives parked, occupying valuable real estate that could be put to many other uses. Some day we'll wake up from the auto-dominated nightmare we're created for ourselves.
many thanks to those in NYC who had the balls to break the social codes and rethink the way the streets are used.
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