Philadelphia Celebrates 6th Annual 'Park(ing) Day' With Pocket-Size Parks
By Hadas Kuznits
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Several organizations were turning parking spots around the city of Philadelphia into creative spaces today, part of the sixth annual "Park(ing) Day."
Fifty parking spaces were taken over by 54 different organizations to create pop-up parks, from center city to West Philadelphia, from West Girard Avenue to Spring Garden, and elsewhere.
"Folks come by and say 'Happy Parking Day!' " notes Park(ing) Day co-organizer Erike De Veyra. "We also get folks who have never heard of it before and they always ask us, 'Are you gonna be here tomorrow?' We're like, 'No, Parking Day's only once a year.' "
She says Park(ing) Day is to raise awareness of the need for more public spaces.
She says there's a huge range of the kinds of pop-up parks that were created this year:
"Zipcar has painting pumpkins, folks have grass laid out with furniture, I hear on 13th Street they're giving massages. Over by Love Park, Parks and Rec have turtles."
As for De Veyra's crew, they turned a Walnut Street parking spot into an interractive art display.
