In a move some wet blankets thoughtful commenters regard as another assault in the War on Cars, PARK(ing) Day is here. Yes, for an entire day, Wallingford has one less parking space, causing untold inconvenience to some person who wants to park their car in that exact spot today, just so that a number of other people can enjoy themselves. Oh, the humanity!
For those with a more generous spirit, head on over to 45th and Interlake, where you will find Wallingford’s contribution, a parklet created by the Friend of North Lake Union (FONLU) team filled with plants, seating, tables, and games (according to the map on the PARK(ing0 Day web site.)
If you don’t mind heading over to the U District, there are several one-day parklets on the Ave, as well, including:
- Picket fence barrier, stage, door frame, bookshelf, camp chairs. Scheduled activities like storytelling will take place throughout the day for all age groups
- A mix of games and activities along with spaces to hang out and sit (in a ball pit potentially). The TV will be playing silent reruns of old Husky football games.
- Jurassic City, where a cardboard “city” will be faced with prehistoric disasters hourly, and participants will rebuild the city
And then there are over 50 more throughout the city, such as:
- Sustainable Capitol Hill: 8 tools will be selected for the Tool Championship Finals. Watch them face off each hour. Only one tool will be victorious! Plus bike cleaning/maintenance, juggling.
- Cell Phone Stop: A cell phone free (& collision free!) zone on the sidewalk. Our site will funnel cell phone users in to use task specific furniture for texting, emailing, calling, or charging
- Center on Contemporary Art: A seated area for people to sit and as they look around them through an app on their smart phones, the landscape will be transformed via an Augmented Reality software
- LeMOONade Stand: Like a regular lemonade stand, but on the moon! Features space-themed food and drink.
All happening today only, 10 am – 7 pm! Great excuse to take a city-wide bike ride. Check out the map!
I see from the map that TNT Taqueria is getting a parklet. Dare I say it? Looks awesome!
Your first sentence pretty much says what has gone wrong with this blog. Between you and Eric it has become a platform for you two to spew your own political beliefs rather than a blog that simply informs us about what’s going on in our neighborhood. You both portray people who disagree with you as “wet blankets”, bad people, invalid, when they are in fact good people who just so happen to have differing views from the both of yours.
Yeah, this degree of nasty editorializing is a little absurd. I just moved here… what are all the other sources of neighborhood-level news that people follow?
All the other sources? None, really. We are stuck with Wallyhood, so we just have developed thick skins so we can put up with their vicious attacks. Of course it helps that you can’t see us weeping, sitting at our computers – we act tough but of course it hurts … “wet blankets” … oh the humanity.
Vicious!
I’ll admit to being a parklet detractor. You call me a wet blanket!!?!!
I demand the return of the subscription fee that I paid to read this free blog.
Welcome to Wallingford. A blog like this comes with the Buddhas and the Subarus.
Sounds like wet blankets need to wrung itself out and start flapping on said blog then. C’mon, stiffen up.
There’s a great Washington Post article, “Donald Trump is reaping what he has sown” which looks at the poisoned atmosphere of politics and how we play an active part of that creation. It wasn’t about Trump’s usual click/switch bait bits that make people of all persuasions thoroughly aroused. It was when he didn’t correct the fella who declared Obama a Muslim and not a citizen at a rally. This WAPO piece continues on to describe how Trump was an early advocate of such belief and because legitimate politicians did so little to correct such lies, it legitimized this lie to the point 43% of republicans now believe Obama really is a Moslem per CNN poll.
So what is a lie is accepted as truth by a large number of voters. My point is both sides play this game. The article goes on to point the obvious, such tactic is successful because of social media and the echo chamber which draw like mindedness and amplify these messages.
If you don’t like this state affair, speak your bits. Don’t let it be an echo chamber.
Sorry, I can’t quite manage to connect the dots here. Are you saying, we need some more wrangling over parking space park-lets, because people aren’t seeing through the lies that have been perpetuated by the media?
To be fair, I guess there’s more generally an element of validity here, if we may refer to the barrage of propaganda from the political establishment in support of various “urbanist” notions that are convenient for big developer money interests. We’re going to hear a lot more of that in months to come, as the city council’s already adopting resolutions committing to upzoning and height increases. Changes to parking requirements are farther down the time line, giving them time to work on programs like this one that make a parking space look like something that displaces fun and blots out beauty.
Unfortunately, though, it’s hard to fix that by wrangling in a Wallyhood blog comment section.
To get back on topic–the most amazing “parklets” I saw were on NE 65–two “pop-up bicycle lanes” .
I at first thought it was just guerrilla bike lanes, (the eastbound one was designated as a memorial to Andy Hulslander, a bicyclist killed at 65th and 15th) but remembered it was parklet day (and they’re on the official map). So, parklets can be just fun, or can serve useful purpose.
Sorry Donn. My brain gets addled with age. Parklets are cute and add outdoor sitting space for businesses who don’t need car driving customers. I just don’t get why since this city is rolling in so much park and rec dough, it can’t upgrade our old, dingy, often smelly public bathrooms at Greenlake (+showers to rinse off dirt and literally green lake water), Golden Gardens, Madison Park, Alki, Discovery Park, etc.
Perhaps make the toilets parklets to drink your double shot, while tapping on iPhone as doing your biz will win in the multifunction argument? That’ll appeal to the smartly connected and heck, give us something San Francisco doesn’t have ( not to rub it in, but how are the 49’ers doing this year?). Think they’ll go for such a wet blanket idea?