Farewell to the Parklet
Earlier this summer, through the incredible work of the Business Improvement District, the City of Durango, and countless others, Main Avenue was re-striped and businesses were allowed to “bump out” into the street. At Maria’s, after learning about this opportunity, a series of over-ambitious ideas rapidly snowballed into one very over-ambitious idea, and before we knew it, we were shoveling yards of soil onto Main Ave. Before long, we’d created a 30’ x 10’ public green space in front of Maria’s.
In the Maria’s Bookshop parklet we had two full sized trees, twelve shrubs, four grasses, two tomato plants, lots of smaller but no less important veggies, one pumpkin plant, the occasional cigarette butt, two stalks of beautiful Peruvian corn, one stalk of Amaranth, and even, for just an hour, most of a crashed car. Over the course of the summer, the Maria’s parklet took on a life of its own. We had pedestrians stopping to take a seat in the shade and children delighting in the novelty of seeing ripe bell peppers growing on the sidewalk. We had “parklet regulars” eat their lunch out front most days and we were honored to host Sheryl and Beau for some live music a couple times.
Earlier this week we dismantled the parklet and carted it all away. I’m sad to see it go, but truly proud of what we created this summer. I hope that the Maria’s parklet, along with all the other bump-outs on Main, gave us all a brief glimpse of the creative ways we can continue to improve Main Avenue. I’m certainly looking forward to building a new parklet next year and seeing where the bump-out momentum goes.
Maria’s Bookshop is sincerely thankful to the following people and businesses for their generosity and expertise in helping us create our parklet:
Durango Nursery, Keith Thompson with
Manna,
Trees of Trail Canyon,
James Ranch and Tim Walsworth with the
Business Improvement District. Thanks also to all of you who used the parklet! It warmed my heart to see you scattered among the plants in front of Maria’s.
