What makes public space work?
With all of the discussion about downtown development, I’ve been thinking about public space — what makes it work and what doesn’t.
For 10 years, I’ve worked across Midland Avenue from Thoroughbred Park, one of downtown Lexington’s jewels. The front of the park is a people magnet. I almost never walk or drive by without seeing someone there examining sculptor Gwen Reardon’s amazing horses and jockeys.
Most of the time, people are taking pictures, too. If you search the online photo-sharing site Flickr, you’ll see that people have posted dozens of pictures of that bronze horse race and the beautiful stone fence behind it. This time of year, the fountain also gets a good workout from hot children taking a dip.
The back side of the park simulates the rolling horse-farm fields of Central Kentucky. In the middle is a long lawn. The park has trees and nice benches, which are almost always empty. It looks like a great place to eat lunch on a pretty day, but I never see anyone do it. I think I’ve done it only once or twice. I wonder why I don’t go more often?
On a recent vacation trip to New York, I spent some time in Bryant Park, behind the New York Public Library in Midtown. A few years ago, the park was rescued from drug dealers and prostitutes. The city fixed it up and turned it over to private management. There’s a beautiful lawn, often with a stage at the end, shade-tree alleys on each side, carts of books for people to read and free wireless Internet access.
This oasis in Manhattan’s concrete jungle is always full of people reading, relaxing, working on their computers or meeting with friends. A lot of things make Bryant Park work, but the key may be the little green bistro chairs. The park has hundreds of these elegantly simple, lightweight metal chairs with wooden-slat seats and backs. There also are matching tables and stools. People can move them anywhere around the park and group them in ways that meet their needs at the moment. (Good security and management keeps them from leaving the park.)
Walk into Bryant Park early on a summer morning and you’ll see lots of interesting arrangements of empty chairs and tables. You can almost see the activity and hear the conversations from the day before. Even when it’s empty, Bryant Park looks like a busy place where people love to be.
Often, it’s not the grand plan but the small touches that make the difference, whether they are exquisite works of public art or simple green chairs.
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August 2nd, 2008 at 3:11 pm
I’d love to see a place like Bryant Park here in Lexington.
August 5th, 2008 at 2:31 pm
Bryant Park is one of my favorites in New York—in part because I like eating at the Bryant Park Grill. Nonetheless, what’s most interesting to me about this park is that it’s run by a not-for-profit, private management company and a cooperating business improvement district of neighboring property owners. It is the largest effort in the nation of this type, and it has been a success.