When: Friday, September 18, 10 am to 5 pm
4 Press Locations:

• Shakespeare in the Park(ing) Spot -- Fordham University theater students perform Shakespeare in the street (9th Avenue at 60th Street)
• Sustainable Seeds Park - Community gardeners and LES children build a community garden in a parking space (11th Street between Avenues B and C)
• Working from the Street Park -- A web design firm moves their office to the street, and sets up charging stations for laptops, iphones and electronics (Grand Street at Mercer Street)
• Cortelyou Road Park -- Brooklynites create a green haven in front of a school and library for kids to relax, paint and study (Cortelyou Road at Argyle Road)

For the third year, hundreds of New Yorkers will temporarily convert 125 square-foot on-street parking spaces into parks, plazas and dynamic destinations as part of Park(ing) Day NYC. With striking visual installations, Park(ing) Day shows the latent potential of the street space currently used to park a single car, and how it can be repurposed for the use of an entire neighborhood. The annual event is sponsored by Transportation Alternatives and the Open Planning Project in conjunction with schools, architectural firms and civic groups from four boroughs.

Streets are New York City's most abundant public space, but the overwhelming majority of road space is given over to moving and parking motor vehicles. New York City has more than 75,000 metered parking spaces alone, and there is enormous opportunity for neighborhoods underserved by parks and public space to make use of abundant street space instead.

"Our streets don't have to be all-car, all the time," says Paul Steely White, Executive Director of Transportation Alternatives. "In the space it takes to park a single car, we're creating community gardens, building plazas and giving neighborhoods some much needed room to breathe. We hope it inspires more permanent changes to the streets."

51 parking spaces will be reclaimed for this year's Park(ing) Day NYC. The event began in San Francisco in 2006, and has since expanded to more than 100 cities in 20 countries.

Full details about Park(ing) Day NYC including a map of all spaces are at parkingdaynyc.org.

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