Just a few weeks ago, the Meatpacking District’s Gansevoort Plaza was an urban wasteland.  Cars and cabs pealed through the area without regard to their surroundings, creating dangerous conditions for pedestrians and cyclists.

In 2005, PPS met with local community leaders to develop a vision for the area.  Recently, several simple changes were implemented that have changed the streetscape.

Photo by Lily Bernheimer

Traffic has been significantly slowed and pedestrians now have a place to sit in this now-bustling neighborhood!

Previous Posts:

Eve on the Street: Gansevoort Plaza Open for Business [Streetsblog]

PPS Projects: Gansevoort Plaza [PPS Transportation Projects]

The General Services Administration (GSA) and Project for Public Spaces are currently partnering on an initiative to improve federal plazas that extend into urban communities in 24 American cities. The partnership has resulted in a free publication titled Achieving Great Federal Public Spaces: A Property Manager’s Guide.

The tools and initiatives developed through this partnership have recently made impacts in cities of Syracuse, NY, and Denver, CO.

In Denver, the Byron G. Rogers Courthouse plaza had become a sterile and inefficient locale during the Timothy McVeigh trial. As part of the plaza’s revitalization, the city added an “ambassador” to assist in directing visitors, as well as new benches and planted flowers. The once hectic waiting area to enter the building’s security checkpoint has been enclosed under a light-filled atrium that now includes a calming water feature.

In Syracuse, The GSA involved the surrounding community for input on upgrades to The Plaza at the James M. Hanley Federal Building, a long-time locale for weekly live music, food and entertainment on summer evenings. The Plaza’s upgrades include an oval green space, as well as benches, picnic tables and improved signage. The new design also incorporates design elements from the nearby, recently upgraded Clinton Square Corridor, creating cohesion between the two spaces.

Incorporating local communities is key to decision-making. “The broader outreach, the better,” says Project for Public Spaces Vice President Cynthia Nitikin. “It’s all sort of also geared toward having these federal buildings or municipal buildings or civic institutions start coalescing into districts and civic centers. This process is really about civic institutions taking a lead once again in helping revitalize communities.”

Related Articles:

Achieving Great Federal Public Spaces: A Property Manager’s Guide [PPS Project Experience]

Improve Your Building’s Public Spaces[Buildings Magazine]

Photos Credit: Tom Davis

Thousands of revelers and recreation seekers came out for the opening of downtown Houston’s first park, Discovery Green. The new 12-acre park boasts an interactive water feature, amphitheater, children’s playground, dog run, spacious green lawns, public art works and restaurants. All the amenities are meant to draw a diversity of users. That was clearly accomplished on opening day.

PPS facilitated a series of workshops in 2005 to gather and use community input for the design of the park. The result is a urban oasis with dozens of options for things to do in a city with few open spaces.
Guy Hagstette, Director of Discovery Green, emailed PPS saying:

“It was a picture perfect day, and something over 20,000 people showed up. . . there are so many things to do in the park. It was really a lot of fun. . . we have had scores of parents with toddlers playing on the playground and kids throwing frisbees and sunbathing. Barbara Bush even stopped by.”

More information about the park can be found on the Discovery Green website.

Previous posts:

Park Could Be A Great Place [Houston Chronicle]

Houston Downtown Park Groundbreaking [KHOU]

Project Concept Plan [from the PPS Project Experience Files]

Photo: Main Library in Charlotte, NC

Neil Peirce, whose weekly columns about state and regional issues are syndicated by the Washington Post Writers Group, reports on the growing trend of libraries as better social gathering places, offering activities beyond traditional book borrowing and reading. It’s now more common for uses on the inside to spill seamlessly to the outside.
PPS worked with the Public Library of Charlotte on ways to create better public spaces around the perimeter of the building:

“If the old model of the library was the inward focused ‘reading room,’ the new one is more like a community ‘front porch.’”

Libraries can be anchors for community life.

Related Articles:

Libraries That Matter [PPS Newsletter, 4/2007]

Library Placemaking in Action [PPS Archived Newsletter]

How to Make Your Library Great [PPS Archived Newsletter]

 

   Photo Credit (left): Lily Bernheimer

The NYC DOT appears to be moving ahead with changes that will make Gansevoort Plaza, a massive intersection at the heart of the Meatpacking District, into a comfortable pedestrian area.

While everyone is wondering how the space will shape up in the long-run, comment postings on Streetsblog show that there is no shortage of good ideas. Recommendations from readers range from the installation of a central fountain to allocating the space for a green or flea market.

Related Posts:

Community Vision for Gansevoort Plaza [PPS Project Experience]

Meat Market Traffic Patterns [The Villager]

A 2-acre parcel of land for sale on the Providence waterfront, now the site of a former night club called Shooters, could be an extension of the adjacent India Point Park. Residents want the site to be rezoned to prevent condo development, while the Rhode Island DOT claims it must be sold at market price to the highest bidder based on Federal Highway Administration requirements.  

Ethan Kent, PPS Vice President, recently participated in a community forum about the site and said it could become a regional draw. It’ll be up to community members to push for a plan that reflects the personality of the city.

Better access to the waterfront is one of the 7 principles listed in Providence 2020, a long-term vision for the city’s growth. The plan calls for continuous waterfront pedestrian access with linkages to parallel streets.

Related Articles:

Residents Ask to Protect Shooters Site [The Providence Journal]

Proposed Rezoning along Waterfront  [Greater City: Providence]

Photo: Woonerf in Copenhagen, Denmark

The New York Times reports on ten progressive street designs that are challenging the traditional “street-curb-sidewalk motif,” which has defined so many streets in NYC and around the world by giving priority to automobiles. The ten designs are:

1. Woonerfs
2. Play Streets 
3. Bicycle Boulevards  
4. Pavement Hierarchy 
5. Green Grid 
6. Mental Speed Bumps
7. Swaled Streets
8. Lanescapes 
9. Gentle Congestion 
10. Urban Acupuncture

Ethan Kent, PPS Vice President, who has been involved with the NYC Streets Renaissance Campaign, remarks:

“Let’s go to the next level to create great streets that really draw the life of the communities they are meant to serve.”

Some of the transportation reforms, like the conversion of a parking lot to a public plaza in DUMBO, have been met with overwhelming community support, while other proposals stir mixed reactions.   

More On Great Streets:

APA Great Streets in America

Book by Alan Jacobs

Greatstreets.org

Montreal is a city with an interesting mix of old colonial squares and new corporate plazas. A new approach to creating vibrant public places seems to be brewing. The focus is on simple and flexible designs that facilitate human activity rather than merely display great architectural achievements.

Gavin Affleck, a partner in the Montreal-based firm Affleck + de la Riva Architects and contributing editor for the monthly magazine Canadian Architect, writes:

“What public space is about is human activity; what it is not about is architectural objects. The great urban spaces of European cities are precisely that: spaces. What fills them is the ebb and flow of life–events, experiences, activities.

Rather than aesthetic, formal or visual concerns, the measure of success of a public space is the degree of vitality it achieves as a support for human activity.“ 

Despite the large number of Americans now living in cities, urban issues have been astonishingly absent from the U.S. presidential debates. PPS did a spoof article for Faking Places, the annual April Fool’s Newsletter, in which Hillary, McCain and Obama make promises for more livable neighborhoods. The glaring omission of urban issues from the national discourse is actually no laughing matter.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:

“There are three times as many urbanites in America as country folk, yet you wouldn’t know it listening to the three main presidential candidates, or perusing their Web sites. Instead, you might come away thinking the United States is a collection of Norman Rockwell small towns surrounded by picture-book farms.”

Related Stories: 

The Candidates and the City [Gotham Gazette]

Urban Issues Get Short Shrift [Politico]

Candidates Largely Ignore Urban Issues [City Mayors]

The ambitious bicycle sharing program in Paris is a model for smart transportation policy. It is revolutionizing the city’s street culture while also tackling rising energy costs and global climate change.

Renting stations are quickly becoming places to meet friends and strangers. Jay Walljasper, PPS  Senior Fellow and blogger for National Geographic’s The Ecopolitan, writes:

“Borrowing a bright idea from Lyon, France, the city is developing what amounts to a two-wheeled version of the metro. You can pick up a bike at one of 1500 Velib (roughly, “free bike”) stations around the city and ride it where you need to go for free or a nominal fee. Since last summer 15,000 bikes have been put on the streets, with another 5,000 to be added by the end of the year. The next step is adding more bike lanes and other improvements that make it easier and more fun to cycle around Paris.”

Related Articles:

Paris Wins the ITDP Sustainable Transport Award [Streetsblog]

Paris Joins 2-Wheel Trend In Europe [New York Times]

European-style Bike Sharing Programs Head to US [AFP]