Friday, August 5, 2016

Summer Streets return tomorrow (Saturday!)



It's that time of year again. Here's the official About:

Summer Streets is an annual celebration of New York City’s most valuable public space — our streets. On three consecutive Saturdays in August, nearly seven miles of NYC's streets are opened for people to play, run, walk and bike. Summer Streets provides space for healthy recreation and encourages New Yorkers to use more sustainable forms of transportation. In 2015, nearly 300,000 people took advantage of the open streets.

Summer Streets is modeled on other events from around the world including Ciclovía in Bogotá, Colombia and the Paris Plage in France and has since inspired other such events around the world such as CicloRecreo Via and London's Regent Street Summer Streets.

Held between 7 am to 1 pm, Summer Streets extends from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park, along Park Avenue and connecting streets, with easy access from all points in New York City, allowing participants to plan a trip as long or short as they wish. All activities at Summer Streets are free of charge, and designed for people of all ages and ability levels to share the streets respectfully.

For us living around Steiner East Village, the car-free, Street-Festival-Free zone includes Lafayette, Astor Place and Fourth Avenue.

As always, there are five different "Rest Stop" activity zones along the route. On Foley Square, a 300-foot, three-story Vita Coco™ Beachside Slide will offer Summer Streeters a chance to stand in line — but only if you pre-registered to stand in line.

Astor Place will host the "Paws and Play Dog Run." Other Astor Place programming tomorrow includes:

During week one, test your athletic prowess by running with Team Citi and the Mets. Summer Streets participants can virtually race a U.S. Olympian, meet three time U.S. National Champion and 2016 U.S. Paralympic Hopeful Scout Bassett, as well as Mrs. Met and pick up some Mets and Olympic swag from the social media vending machines.

And down on Bleecker and Lafayette, a rep from the Mayor's office will be on hand each week to lift a deed restriction on a building for one aspiring landlord.

Previously on EV Grieve:
Takin' it to the streets like the Doobie Brothers

Summer loving had me a blast, Summer loving happened so fast

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you plan on crossing town on foot this day be prepared to by a human "Frogger" against the flood of racing bicyclists.

Anonymous said...

The rain in the forecast should scare most of the CitiBikers away.

Cosmo said...

@9:38 - yep, this is the day I make plans to stay on the east side. It's impossible to cross Lafayette on foot.

Anonymous said...

Another summer Saturday ruined by this event. If I want to be jammed in a crush of humanity this way, I'd go to Grand Central Station at rush hour.

Last time I "participated" (on foot) I could barely walk for mob of bikers, runners, scooter-riders, roller skaters, and the SUV stroller-pushing families. There was nothing enjoyable about it.

It's a PERFECT day to stay home with the a/c on.

Good luck to anyone who actually has to be somewhere or God forbid, has an emergency.

Anonymous said...

If I may be a contrarian--I thoroughly enjoy Summer Streets. The trick is to go early, when the event begins at 7am. I have had the delightful experience of having Park Avenue almost to myself at that hour for my walk. I love the perspective of being able to be a pedestrian around the upper reaches of Grand Central, which is ordinarily reserved for cars alone. By the time that I've had a few hours of walking, the streets are starting to fill up . . . and I'm happily on my way home.

As for the bicycles--i limit my walk to Astor Place northwards, where the streets are wide enough for cyclists to stay to the left, and pedestrians to the right. In the narrower southern reaches, not all cyclists are good citizens-of-the-road.

Anonymous said...

@12:57, by definition if you say ANYTHING positive about a post on this blog you're already and outlier and outsider. Don't sweat it, I agree with you. It's a perfectly fine event as evidenced by the amount of people that show up and not the whiners.

Anonymous said...

It's as if there is an imaginary bike race going on that day, the aggression of some bicyclists is freaking scary. It's like you are in their turf so get the hell out. Good idea ruined by some selfish people.

Anonymous said...

@1:00pm: You know, a large amount of people show up to riots as well - so does high attendance automatically mean something is a desirable event?

@1:05pm: Yep, it's like their own private raceway & they expect everyone else to just get out of their way. I'd love to know what the injury stats are, in terms of all "incidents" at Summer Streets, b/c I've seen people nearly knocked into the path of oncoming bike riders in previous years, simply due to the crowding.

Anonymous said...

I'm going to have to stop reading the comments on this site. I get that it's ev "grieve" but what a downer..!

Anonymous said...

All of you complaining about crowds and participant behavior... You know that means precisely that we need MORE such open space for various road users, like pedestrians, cyclists, those on scooters, SUV stroller armies etc? Many cities around the world manage to do something like this on a WEEKLY basis and open up even upwards of 30 miles of roadway, not the little we get. Bogota and Mexico City are good examples. I don't know why our Summer Streets need to have 5 NYPD cops manning every closed intersection. Sweet, sweet overtime.

Anonymous said...

@9:12pm: Oh yeah, we want NYC to be JUST LIKE Mexico City, b/c things there are *really* fabulous, right? Low crime rate, great air quality, etc.

First we needed to be Amsterdam, now we need to be Mexico City. Why don't all the people who think Amsterdam and Mexico City are so perfect move to those places, and let NYC be NYC?

What we REALLY need in NYC is priority for PEDESTRIANS, and some respect for people who are older or disabled.

Anonymous said...

Oh FFS, why do some people get incensed at the fact that some places do certain things better than we do? Have you been to Mexico City? Bogota? Let's stop pretending like NYC is some sort of paradise that has nothing to learn from others, even poorer countries.

Anonymous said...

@7:58pm: Oh FFS, if you don't think NYC is the best place on the planet to live, you really should move somewhere that you think is better.

NYC *was* a paradise before Bloombucks and his developer friends decided to turn it into a tourist attraction and billionaire-laundered-money location. We had great neighborhoods with affordable apartments & people who knew each other because they lived in one place for more than a year. We had tons of mom-and-pop stores of infinite variety that are now mostly gone. And we didn't have the entitled "I'm here to get drunk and puke on your sidewalk" jackasses every f*cking weekend.

Mexico City: Tell me how wonderful, incredible and desirable it is to live there, why don't you? Tell me why you're not living there right now. Bogota, oh please. If you prefer Mexico or South America, GREAT, go have a wonderful life there. But don't tell me - a lifelong New Yorker - that this city ought to be like some other city. Next I suppose you'll be saying how fabulous Shanghai is - what a bike-rider's paradise - and suggesting that we should be just like that city. Maybe we can even change our street signs into Mandarin, because it's "better"?