Park(ing) Day Transforms Downtown San Diego Into Playgrounds

Park(ing) Day in San Diego turned at least 12 parking spots into urban playgrounds on Friday.

At sites around downtown San Diego, artists and businesses remade parking spaces into tiny front lawns with space for games and riding bikes. A parking spot at 4th Avenue and C Street became a backyard, complete with the game cornhole.

“When you live downtown and you work downtown, you don’t have big luxurious backyards you can play in or beaches you can lay out in,” said Angela Wells, a spokeswoman for the nonprofit Downtown San Diego Partnership, which sponsored the event. “You make do with what we have, which is some parking spaces.”

Drivers turned to watch Wells heaving bean bags while they waited at the intersection.

The event started in San Francisco in 2005 and has spread to cities around the world. Organizers call it a global movement.

It’s a chance for artists to remake a tiny portion of a city, at least for a few hours.

This is the fourth year Park(ing) Day has been held in San Diego.

Want more KPBS news?
Find us on Twitter and Facebook, or sign up for our newsletters. + Subscribe to our podcasts

To view PDF documents, Download Acrobat Reader.