Recipe for Park Chelsea's Microparks

Recipe for Park Chelsea's Microparks

T

Take a Community Garden where community will be grown

add

 Fence/Gates to make it safe

 

add

Sidewalk seating arrangements that allows for face to face conversations
and
 
shared activities
(these Upper west side neighbors are playing Travel Scrabble)


add

Curb cut Inlets Storage Chambers
to store rain from overwhelming  CSO's ( Combined Sewer Outlets)

add

Bollards
to protect from traffic

add

Storage Area
for garden tools
and
recreational paraphernalia

add

Block Bulletin Board
Will allow block residents a means of  communications

place ingredients


in Parking Lane Location for Garden

with seating on sidewalk of 

 Residental streets, not Avenues

optional

adjacent Shared Vehicle parking Spot

 Why a Park and Community Garden and not just a Park? 

At a surface level Park Chelsea is about creating more open space opportunities for the people of Chelsea. At a deeper level it's about growing community, getting to know your neighbors, seeding friendships. I have talked to people in the building in which I live who have never been in the apartments of the other people who live on their floor. I've talked to neighbors who after years of living next door to each other still don't know what their names are. I've talked to businesses who are in the business of bringing people together yet have no contact with the other businesses on their street. By designing this project in a way which will function only with the participation of people on their blocks and in their buildings, community will grow. And when it comes down to it, this is as important as the stated goal of the project 

The importance of involving communities

in the design process

The passage below by the internationally renown landscape architect Laurence Halpern presents some insight as to the importance of the participants of a community into the design of their community. 

 

Involvement and Participation

The concept of involvement and participation

underlies this whole report. It seems central to the

comments of all our consultants. Rand has

summarized the point when he says, "Designed

environments which are thought out. formalized,

and complete are usually lifeless' and

unapproachable because (a) they do not invite

interaction and modification to suit immediate

human needs; (b) they are unable to grow, develop

and become extended through human use. Human

habitation merely fulfills (for better or far worse)

the designer's conception of their potential

meaning rather than leading to the discovery

of new functions and new forms of interaction.

Oddly enough [he goes on to say] many environ-

ments which 'work' well for people meet few.

if any, aesthetic criteria ordinarily employed

by designers."

From New York, New York (1968) by Lawrence Halpern and Associates. 

Ranger Bob says: "I'd been  working on the design of the Park Chelsea concept since late 2010. It was only after I'd been given the  garden space at 8th Ave and 25th St and offered to share it with my neighbors did the true power of  organizing Park Chelsea  as a series of  constantly evolving community garden spaces come together "

 Park Chelsea is a project of:

Chelsea community gardeners -- we grow community!