The New York Times Travel Section has a nice article about the hidden public spaces in the Quadrat d’Or of Barcelona. It’s nice to see public spaces dedicated primarily to the residents of the area, instead of the streets which they share with tourists. The haphazard nature of the spaces is also a nice contradiction to the gridded streets that surround them.
Photo from the NYTimes.
We’re going from the widest road in the world to the smallest park in the world. It’s like a public space freak show up in here. Mill Ends Park, in delightful Portland, Oregon, with an area of 452 square inches (a circle with a diameter of two feet).
The park’s creation story comes from Dick Fagan, a columnist for the Oregon Journal, and goes something like this:
He looked out the window and spotted a leprechaun digging in the hole. He ran down and grabbed the leprechaun, which meant that he had earned a wish. Fagan said he wished for a park of his own; but since he had not specified the size of the park in his wish, the leprechaun gave him the hole. Over the next two decades, Fagan often featured the park and its head leprechaun, named Patrick O’Toole, in his whimsical column.Via Wikipedia
The little bit o’median became a park in 1976. I’m not sure what lessons can be drawn from Mill Ends Park, but it’s nice to see medians getting some love.
Photo by atul666
Avenida 9 de Julio is the widest street in the world — the width of an entire city block. In my personal experience, it’s impossible to cross it all in one light. Instead, you cross one of the frontage roads and maybe the central artery. On the second light you complete the trip.
While this may seem like a symbol of cars run amok, but both sides of the avenue are vibrant pedestrian zones. It feels more like Buenos Aires took the idea of a small town main street and super-sized it.
Photo by Vir argentina.
Savannah’s Squares were an APA Great Place for 2009. Not bad for an amateur planner in 1733. Photo courtesy of code poet.
