Transbay Blog
Public Spaces / Parks
PARK(ing) Day 2009
Last week on PARK(ing) Day, I carved out some time to run around to a few different neighborhoods in San Francisco, enjoying parking spots that were transformed temporarily into miniature parks and pockets of usable public space. While I had planned to get a post up with some pictures much sooner than this, I didn’t … Continue reading
The Pedestrianization Fever Moves South
University & Bryant, in downtown Palo Alto. Courtesy of Flickr user ikkoskinen. Has the new 17th Street pedestrian plaza in San Francisco’s Castro District set off a spark? San Francisco is not the only Bay Area city that dreams of creating bustling new pedestrian open spaces, nor is it the only one that isn’t quite … Continue reading
Planning to Conserve
Courtesy of Greenbelt Alliance. For those of us who call the Bay Area home, it can be easy to forget just how lucky we are — that we get to live, work, and play in an attractive, vibrant urban setting whose visual appeal is all the more enhanced by the region’s dramatic topography and inherent … Continue reading
Park(ing) Day 2008
This past Friday, September 19, was Park(ing) Day, that day each year when parking spots are turned into miniature parks. Park(ing) Day is a nice reminder of the value of public spaces, and of how nice it can be to reclaim even small chunks of pavement from automobiles and return them to pedestrians, if only … Continue reading
Thumbs Up For Market-Octavia and 55 Laguna
A busy week prevented me from posting about this earlier, but better late than never: as you may have already read in the Chronicle, there have been favorable updates at the Board of Supervisors concerning the Market & Octavia Plan, which I addressed in a post a couple weeks ago. Supervisors Mirkarimi and McGoldrick had … Continue reading
John King Exposes San Francisco’s “Pockets of Peace”
John King exposes San Francisco’s “Pockets of Peace.” John King, who handles the Chronicle‘s output regarding architecture and design, came out with a nice piece today exposing downtown San Francisco’s public spaces, many of which are remarkably hidden and little known. Thanks to the downtown plan, which stipulates the provision of privately owned and maintained … Continue reading
Gearing Up For Block 11
Because most of the general interest in the Transbay redevelopment process seems to focus, quite understandably, on the Pelli Transit Center and its signature tower, it is easy to forget how much planning is required to deal with the rest (really, most) of the redevelopment zone — now-vacant lots once occupied by the Embarcadero Freeway, … Continue reading
Minty Fresh Plaza
Last Friday, an 18,000 square foot section of pavement was reclaimed for pedestrians, with the official opening of Mint Plaza, on Fifth Street between Market and Mission. The plaza occupies a former section of Jessie Street, right next to the Old Mint building. By 2011, this 1874 Alfred Mullett structure will house the Museum of … Continue reading
(PARK)ing Day 2007
When you stop and think about it, it is amazing just how much space we have chosen to give over to automobiles. Certainly, there are the car storage locations: surface parking lots, street parking spots, driveways, and huge parking garages. But what about freeways? Entire neighborhoods have been sacrificed and razed to the ground to … Continue reading
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