Summer Streets Coming to Brooklyn This Weekend

car_free_beford.jpgEnjoying car-free Bedford Ave. during Williamsburg Walks 2008. Photo: acsweet/Flickr

After today’s rain clears out, it looks to be a beautiful weekend for two Summer Streets events in Brooklyn.

Starting tomorrow, Bedford Avenue from North 4th to North 9th
Street will be open to pedestrians only on six Saturdays
from noon to sunset. This year’s Williamsburg Walks is a project of community residents along with Neighbors Allied for Good Growth and The L Magazine.

Every Sunday in June, Vanderbilt Avenue between Dean Street and Park Place will go car-free from noon to 5 p.m., thanks to the Vanderbilt Avenue Merchants District and the Prospect Heights Neighborhood Development Council.  Says the PHNDC: "There will be music, art and gardening, face painting, sun and trees, shopping, eating and relaxing, biking and performances, and people watching. Plus a few surprises."

Word is there will be plenty more Summer Streets action this year. Stay tuned.

  • This morning’s METRO reports on this favorably:

    http://metro.us/us/article/2009/06/05/02/2953-82/index.xml

  • Larry Littlefield

    This is the future for better or worse — we’ll pay taxes but have to do things for ourselves even so. It’s a lot cheaper to close a street than to build (or even maintain) a park.

    Like the bicycle as a transport mode, this is a cheap version of parks and recreation. All that is required is a reallocation of space from motor vehicles.

    I’m not sure necessity is spurring invention or invention is happening on its own, but were going to need solutions like these to have a decent life in the city following Generation Greed. Beats the usual thing politicians do to attract positive attention when there is no money — planning studies.

  • MrManhattan

    So what about “Summer Streets” in Manhattan?

    Any word?

  • Car free afternoons are very popular in Boston and Cambridge where much of Memorial Drive along the Charles River is shut down on Sunday afternoons. Often I dream about the end of oil and a return to a world without cars. I can dream…

    Liz

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