Pop into our pop-up park Friday, September 21

Please visit the APACC PARK(ing) Day pop-up park Friday, September 21, 9:00 am - 4:00 pm on Martin Luther King, Jr. Ave SE across the street from the Big Chair!

We’ll have cold or warm beverages (depending on the weather) and light snacks, fun activities, and a relaxing place to sit. The chairs are courtesy of Anacostia Waterfront Trust and funder Prince Charitable Trust. Prince funded the chairs to support events during the Year of the Anacostia and give people another place to relax in Anacostia Park.

What's this thing called PARK(ing) Day?

It's a day to celebrate public park spaces all over the world. Living Streets Alliance describes PARK(ing) Day this way:

PARK(ing) Day is a annual open-source global event where citizens, artists and activists collaborate to temporarily transform metered or signed parking spaces into “PARK(ing)” spaces: temporary public places. The project began in 2005 when Rebar, a San Francisco art and design studio, converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in downtown San Francisco.

Rebar’s original PARK(ing) project in 2005 transformed a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in an area of San Francisco that the city had designated as lacking public open space. The great majority of San Francisco’s downtown outdoor space is dedicated to movement and storage of private vehicles, while only a fraction of that space is allocated to serve a broader range of public needs. Paying the meter of a parking space enables one to lease precious urban real estate on a short-term basis. The PARK(ing) project was created to explore the range of possible activities for this short-term lease, and to provoke a critical examination of the values that generate the form of urban public space.

PARK(ing) Day in DC

In six of the eight wards across DC, pop-up parks will range from simple to ornate and all will encourage visitors to consider how parks can better serve residents and the broader community.

Anacostia Park and Community Collaborative will be participating in PARK(ing) Day for the second time, this year with Anacostia Waterfront Trust, Washington Area Bicyclist Association, District Department of Transportation, and DC Public Library. We'll be engaging park visitors with treats and talking about why park space is important. Download the flyer (PDF).

All pop-up park locations will be listed on the DDOT website.