Another great day in East Somerville! Members of the community, business and property owners, city planners and consultants all took part in breakout sessions ranging from housing to the unique character of the building stock.
The Parks, Plazas, and Playgrounds session identified some of the open space problems in East Somerville: being cut off from the rest of the world by main traffic arteries with insufficient, dangerous, and unsightly crossings and a general lack of open space. As the part of the city with the most children per capita, East Somerville’s open spaces are mainly composed of playgrounds with recreational fields mainly concentrated at Foss Park (DCR owned), community gardens at Glen Street park, and Chuckie Harris Park. Participants identified some smaller potential sites that could increase open space and discussed innovative ways to use the streets and existing spaces for creating programming. Some of these ideas include: closing off streets in areas with no open space, adding vertical gardening and water features, movable furniture and wayfinding that tells users where the closets parks are.
The last session, What Can Happen Right Now, addressed the potential for quick solutions using tactical urbanism and pulled a large contingent of visitors to the parking installation. Our parking installation adapted today due to the East Broadway street work. We added a piano to the installation, we have some very talented musicians in Somerville. Come give it a try!
Two bits of info…
- The parking installation is in full swing and will be around through dusk on Wednesday.
- Please join us TOMORROW, October 2nd at the East Somerville Community School for the pin-up presentation at 7:00PM.
