School streets

Friday Video: Drool Over This London School Street

That's cricket! Check out how London transformed a roadway around a big stadium into a play street.

By Gersh Kuntzman

12:02 AM EDT on October 17, 2025

Friday Video: Drool Over This London School Street

That's cricket! London turned a roadway around its main stadium into a school street. Photo: Clarence Eckerson Jr.

It gives children a place to be free and happy and playful.

That’s how Rezina Chowdhury, a city council member in the London borough of Lambeth, describes a school play street around one of the biggest cricket stadiums in the British capital.

Thanks to kid-first planning, about half of the perimeter of space surrounding the 27,000-seat stadium has been set aside as play streets for two schools.

With little more than planters, the borough created “a child-friendly space … where children can play with their friends and their mums and their parents can sit and chat,” said Chowdhury. “Cars have dominated our space. [The play street] is so transformative because it’s just so calm.”

Now, we’re not saying that such things don’t exist in New York — the 34th Avenue “Paseo Park” is a great example of car-light spaces where kids can be kids — but we simply don’t have enough of them.

Have a gander at this film by United Nations-award-winning filmmaker Clarence Eckerson Jr.:

Gersh Kuntzman

Tabloid legend Gersh Kuntzman has been with New York newspapers since 1989, including stints at the New York Daily News, the Post, the Brooklyn Paper and even a cup of coffee with the Times. He's also the writer and producer of "Murder at the Food Coop," which was a hit at the NYC Fringe Festival in 2016, and “SUV: The Musical” in 2007. He also writes the Cycle of Rage column, which is archived here.

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