If you were downtown on Friday, chances are you ran into the PARK(ing) Day festivities. More than 40 organizations took over 57 spots. There was yoga, a dog run, an ice cream stage, a parklet, and our mid-century modern lounge, among many other parks. We had a great time giving away books (yes, the books were free, a concept many people had a hard time believing), getting donations for DISD students to get a copy of Fahrenheit 451 for The Big Read Dallas, and signing people up for library cards. We had some repeat customers from last year, and some new people. If you stopped by our booth, thanks!
Of course, at the end of the day, winners were announced. And, as usual, the winners were the UTA students.
I was looking around to see what pictures/info was posted on PARK(ing) Day Dallas and came across the SkyscraperPage Forum, a site that has been around since 1999. The forum has apparently “been one of the most active skyscraper enthusiast communities on the web.” Not sure how I got to it, but I was intrigued by the entries. Someone posted a couple photos from PARK(ing) Day in Washington, D.C., there were a couple photos from Jacksonville, and then a whole slew of photos from Dallas. That’s where the comments get interesting. “Wow, Dallas went hardcore,” says one. “Of course, given its history of parking lots, it has a lot of demons to exorcise,” says another. And then, “As an insider/outsider, having been gone 20 years, I can say in a few unprofessional words, inner Dallas is *kinda* not f**king around anymore. Good. I’ve been here 180 days. It’s obvious good things are about. I’m pleasantly surprised.”
(Jump for photos and thoughts.)
I’m not saying that the second annual PARK(ing) Day solved all our problems and made downtown Dallas a wonderful, livable, walkable area. But if we can get one person saying good things are about, then that makes me happy. Also, I didn’t realize how easy we have it for PARK(ing) Day. Because of Noah Jeppson, James Warton, and Downtown Dallas Inc., all we have to do is say we want to participate, and that’s it. Other people in other cities have to pay meters or pay the fees themselves, and then there are restrictions. We have it so easy. I hope you’ll join us next year.
And a special thanks to our sponsors, who helped make our spot look great: IKEA, vieuxdesign.com, and the Friends of the Dallas Public Library.
