mile-end’s first park(ing).
or, at least i think so. in case you have never heard about the park(ing) phenomenon, here’s a looksy.
we decided to do a last minute park(ing) just to get the word out that the Citizen’s Forum is happening tomorrow (April 26th, 2009) at École St-Louis, 38 Fairmount Est.
it turned out great, despite the fact that we put about NO organization into it! but we are glad we did it, nonetheless. we were able to show some of our early images and ideas for redeveloping the neighbourhood to other people who live in the neighbourhood (and some who don’t). the posters we brought really did the trick (see image above).
people were very positive about the sorts of things we are suggesting (such as the community space for art, community events, and mobilization, the organic farmer drop-off point in the summer on casgrain, SAVING THE GREEN SPACE NEAR THE TRACKS!!, shows in the summer to bring neighbours together, among a whole swack more). there were at least 100 people who stopped by to talk, and many others who passed through, or by.
the thing that shocked us the most was how many people had no idea that the city is planning to bulldoze our only important green space in mile-end to create a parking lot for big trucks, a new building, and a new road. this shocked the residents we told, and it surprised us that the city actually is pretty good at keeping its plans very, very secret. you figure such a major project would be well-known by all who live nearby, but this simply is not the case.
well, this blog is about getting the word out, and hopefully creating some momentum behind some more original thinking. so please pass this on. we will continue to post all the news and events that come up here, and if you have ideas, please leave comments and let us know what you think and/or are doing.
besides connecting with our fellow neighbours, the best part was taking back at least a part of our streets, and asserting our space as people-sized units! next time we will have much more green, and hopefully some other friends to set up park(ing)s near to us so that we take over a bigger space, and cause a bigger splash of green.
that being said, we did pretty good in terms of square footage, and like i said, the foot traffic past our spot was fantastic.
it was also cool that besides our lack of organization, we still had people who thought our installation was pretty enough to warrant taking pictures of themselves in! could you imagine if we (and here i mean the collective, neighbourhood “we”) actually planned to make our streets green, and sow plants and wildflowers like beauty was something we took seriously in our lives!
ok, that’s it. just wanted to share a bit. we’ll definitely be planning some more of these (and actually “plan” them a bit!), as well as a series of community shows to bring people together this spring and summer. our goal is to make 2009 the mile-end’s summer of love! well, neighbourly love at least, which ain’t so bad …
like noah, the one-year-old environmentalist is wont to say, “get out on the streets people, and make your community greener!”
:)
