Artists Turning Parking Spaces Into Art Spaces On Danbury's Main Street

DANBURY, Conn. -- Citizens, artists and activists can transform metered parking spaces in Danbury into temporary public places for social engagement and creative expression this Friday when the city takes part in PARK(ing) Day.

PARK(ing) Day comes to Danbury's Main Street on Friday, Sept. 16.
Photo Credit: *Danbury Cultural Commission*

Casey Donahue

09/15/2016 4:30 a.m.

PARK(ing) Day is an annual open-source global event that began in 2005 when San Francisco-based art and design studio Rebar converted a single metered parking space in downtown San Francisco into a temporary public park. Since then, the event has evolved into a global movement. Danbury began celebrating PARK(ing) Day in 2014.

This year's PARK(ing) Day will take pop up somewhere on Main Street in Danbury and take place all day Friday, Sept. 16. The event is made possible by the Danbury Parking Authority, the city of Danbury's Department of Parks and Recreation, the Department of Forestry, CityCenter Danbury, Gartner & Main, and a new urban enterprise, DisH Living ("Downtown is Happening").

Since PARK(ing) Day's birth, the project has expanded to include interventions and experiments well beyond the basic “tree-bench-sod” park typology first modeled by Rebar. In recent years, participants have built free health clinics, planted temporary urban farms, produced ecology demonstrations held political seminars, built art installations, opened free bike repair shops and even held a wedding ceremony. All this in the context of this most modest urban territory – the metered parking space.

For more information about PARK(ing) Day, visit parkingday.org.

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