“Any place can become a park.”
(Found here.)
The point is, New York City is out of control with innovation right now. Man, it’s enough to make a person a bit green with envy (if I weren’t already a greenie).
The gist of the article is a series of examples in NYC of old industrial sites and abandoned spaces being turned into parks. The Commissioner of Parks and Recreation (Adrian Benepe) has been on a bit of a rampage to snatch up these unwanted spaces and add them to the city’s park system.
Could you imagine a ‘commissioner’ of parks who was actually proactive in this way? Could you imagine how inspiring that would be if Montréal were actually adding (meaningful) greenspace instead of losing it at alarming rates?
Anyway, I don’t agree with everything Mr. Benepe throws out — for instance, he seems to put a pretty heavy focus on athletic fields, and formalized ‘sport’ infrastructure — but I do appreciate his over all foresight and philosophy. As well, it seems all their parks do have a fairly advanced notion of what a greenspace should do (i.e., they don’t seem to believe a greenspace needs a mowed lawn in order to qualify, as appears to be the case in Montréal). So even though they do have formalized spaces in their parks, they do leave good chunks as more wild areas to encourage biodiversity.
Check out the details and examples here.
(via: Urban Omnibus)
