How a 1.3-mile stretch of street became a much-needed park space in Queens, New York – Grist todayheadline

The spotlight

During the COVID lockdowns of 2020, people in cities all over the world were desperate to get outside. As everything slowed down, residents and city governments organized to block off sections of some streets to cars, instead giving them over to pedestrians and leisure activities — a global phenomenon of “open,” “slow,” or “quiet” streets, depending on the local parlance.

One of the most lauded examples of a successful open street was 34th Avenue in the Jackson Heights neighborhood of Queens, New York, described by many as the gold standard of what open, human-first streets can look like.

Jackson Heights is one of the most diverse neighborhoods in one of the most diverse boroughs of New York City. More than 60 percent of its population is made up of people who were born outside the U.S. And like many working-class neighborhoods where a majority of the residents are people of color, it suffers from a lack of green space.

“Jackson Heights ranks last in per capita park space in all of New York City,” said Dawn Siff, executive director of the Alliance for Paseo Park, a community-led nonprofit organization that emerged to advocate for the 34th Avenue park. “There’s nowhere for your children to learn to ride bikes,” she said. “My children and my nieces attended, and still attend, two of the seven public schools that are basically right up and down 34th Avenue — and they don’t have room for recess.”

The open street initiative has started to change that. For the past five years, a 1.3-mile stretch of 34th Avenue, now known as Paseo Park, has been closed to cars during daytime hours. The park has become such a beloved fixture of the neighborhood that there are now plans to make it permanent. New York City Council Member Shekar Krishnan, who represents the district that includes Jackson Heights and also chairs the Committee on Parks and Recreation, called it “a lifeline” for the community. “What started out as a necessity during the pandemic has really evolved into an incredible place that brings people together — families, children, seniors,” said Krishnan.

This month, following more than a year of planning and visioning sessions, a group of community members released a report offering an ambitious vision for what the space could look like — and a roadmap for how to transform a temporary structure that has grown organically into an organized way to meet a variety of community needs.

A rendering showing what an improved residential block could look like. Courtesy of Alliance for Paseo Park / WXY

Luz Maria Mercado, the board chair of Alliance for Paseo Park, moved to Jackson Heights with her mother when she was around 9 years old, after her parents divorced. “When my parents were together, they had a house. I had a backyard,” she said. “I came to an apartment with absolutely no green space.” What she noticed, from a young age, was that Jackson Heights did have lovely gardens — in the courtyards of private, gated residences in some of the more upscale corners of the neighborhood. Mercado remembered peering through those gates with a degree of envy. “I would think, ‘Wow, this is so nice,’” she said. “‘It would be so nice if we could have this. But this is not meant for people like me and my mom.’”

Mercado now lives on 34th Avenue with her husband and her own children. It’s a nice building — they even have a little terrace. “But what would I see outside? Cars zooming by,” she said. “It was loud. The air was stagnant.”

The pandemic, and the citywide open streets initiative, created an opportunity to reimagine what the neighborhood could look like. When then-mayor Bill de Blasio opened up an application portal for communities to request an open street in their area, several Jackson Heights residents submitted 34th Avenue, Siff recalled. Initially, the city designated just a few blocks in front of Travers Park. But the community wanted more than that — and they began holding rallies to advocate for it.

“As our rallies grew, so did our open street,” Siff said, and eventually 34th Avenue became the longest open street in New York City: 26 whole blocks. “And as soon as we got that space, something magical happened” — even in the midst of an incredibly dark and scary time, Siff said. “Suddenly, we had this 1.3-mile park space, and people started to make it their own.”

Neighbors organized and volunteered to put the barricades up in the morning and take them down in the evening, allowing cars to pass through at night. People began gardening in the median. They took up running for the first time. They taught Zumba classes and English lessons, and set up food pantries. Kids learned to ride bikes.

“Now that we have Paseo Park, the noise level is down, the air quality is better,” Mercado said. Instead of cars honking, “we hear children outside leaving school, enjoying the space, playing soccer.”

As the pandemic eased and things began to reopen, Paseo Park persisted. In 2021, Alliance for Paseo Park (formerly known as Friends of 34th Avenue Linear Park) began advocating for more permanent infrastructure, circulating a petition that more than 2,600 neighbors signed. As wonderful as the newfound space was, it was still a street — and the daily conversion to a park was being managed by volunteers running on fumes.

The city made some improvements, for instance designating “plaza blocks” in front of schools with markings that indicate the space is for pedestrians. But residents still have a bigger vision — and the city has allocated nearly $90 million in capital funding to make the linear park permanent. Last summer, the alliance, wanting to ensure that money would go toward accomplishing the things that residents most cared about, launched a yearlong process of community engagement.

Over the past year, the organization has run surveys online and on paper, conducted visioning sessions and pop-up tabling sessions, appointed outreach ambassadors to host conversations, and even helped facilitate a survey specifically for kids. A number of core priorities emerged, including safety, uninterrupted space for pedestrians, and climate resilience.

The project is not without its detractors — residents who object to the banishment of cars from the avenue, citing a lack of parking, increased traffic on neighboring streets, and for some, a simple desire to live on a street rather than within a park. But this contingent is a vocal minority, Council Member Krishnan said. “It’s very clear this is a project that is beloved by this community,” he said. “I have run multiple times on a platform where Paseo Park is a central part of my work for our community.”

A rendering shows what a school block might look like with additional improvements. Courtesy of Alliance for Paseo Park / WXY

The Alliance for Paseo Park worked with an architecture firm, WXY, to bring the community’s dreams to life in a design — showing what the space could actually look like, and what sorts of infrastructural improvements could accomplish the goals that residents expressed.

The resulting report presents two possible designs: one prioritizing an expanded “super sidewalk” to give ample room for pedestrians, and another prioritizing a “super median” that would offer more green space in between pedestrian lanes. Different blocks would center different needs, like recreation, rest, and play areas specifically for school kids. Stormwater gardens and other features like permeable pavers would reduce flooding in the area. Retractable bollards would allow essential vehicles to enter when needed — like ambulances, sanitation trucks, and Access-A-Ride, the city’s transportation service for residents with disabilities — another thing community members said was important to them.

Yet another priority residents emphasized was clarity about the use of the space. The report notes that currently, Paseo Park is straining under the need to be everything to the community. This is perhaps most embodied by the competition between pedestrians and riders of two-wheeled vehicles. To ease some of this tension, the report proposes making improvements to a parallel street, Northern Boulevard, to create a protected corridor for bikes, mopeds, and scooters.

While it is detailed, the report is not meant to be prescriptive. “We’re not calling specifically for any measures, but one of the things that we are communicating in this report is that this is possible,” Siff said. Their hope is that the city — and the community — will think big about how the space could be transformed, and how clever designs could meet a variety of needs.

“We’re showing the community, we’re showing the city, we’re showing the state, we’re showing the world that it can be done,” Mercado said. “We just have to have the vision and the resources to implement it.”

As far as that implementation goes, infrastructure projects often move slowly in New York, Siff said. Not to mention, the city is currently gearing up for a mayoral election, with the Democratic primary taking place yesterday. “We need really strong leadership in the city to get this done,” said Siff. But she is hopeful that the next mayor will see the opportunity for impact in this project, and “for New York City to take its place among great cities around the world that are repurposing street space to park space, and giving it back to communities.”

— Claire Elise Thompson

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A parting shot

In December 2022, New York City experimented with a temporary open street on Sundays on the iconic Fifth Avenue, to make more room for holiday shoppers. It marked the first time in half a century that the thoroughfare was closed to cars. The city has repeated the initiative every December since, although last year Mayor Eric Adams scaled it down to just a single day.

IMAGE CREDITS

Vision: Mia Torres / Grist

Spotlight: Courtesy of Alliance for Paseo Park / WXY

Parting shot: Ryan Rahman / Pacific Press / LightRocket via Getty Images