An Abandoned Walmart Transformed
McAllen Public Library. Photo via The New York Times.
According to the New York Times, more than 130 former Walmart stores are vacant and available for purchase or lease across the country. With many big box stores and malls closing, we have the opportunity to think of ways to reuse these structures instead of letting them sit abandoned, open to negative activity.
In McAllen, Texas, the city transformed a former Walmart (the size of two and a half football fields) into a contemporary library filled the space with innovative amenities like an art gallery, cafe, used book store, an auditorium, meeting rooms with audiovisual services and electronic classrooms.
The new library is an upgrade from the city’s former library and has drawn a large number of people (about 62,000 people came to the library in July, up from 28,000 visitors this time last year) but some have criticized the library for being outside of the city center and I could not tell from the website if it was accessible by public transportation.
How would you transform a former big box store? What would you do with all that space?!? I’d love to do a workshop with children and hear what kind of imaginative ideas they’d have for a building that size. Water slides? Roller coasters? Skateboarding park? Petting zoo? The possibilities are endless.
McAllen Public Library. Photo via PSFK.
McAllen Public Library. Photo via PSFK.
Kansas City Residents Build Their Own Bike Sharing Network
Kansas City residents build their own bike sharing network. Photo via This Big City
Kansas City, Missouri has the highest ration of highway miles to city population in the country and also ranks last in bicycle and public transportation ridership in the nation. BikeWalkKC, a local bicycle advocacy group takes the approach, that if you don’t have the bicycle infrastructure you want, you build it yourself and they are asked local volunteers to help build a new bike sharing system for their city.
Volunteer labor not only reduces operational costs for the organization, but more important, BikeWalkKC is hoping that volunteers will become invested in the system they build and in turn, become advocates themselves.
Kansas City residents build their own bike sharing network. Photo via This Big City
Over a two-day period and with the support of local business and Blue Cross Blue Shield of Kansas City, 75 dedicated volunteers assembled NINETY bikes for the new bike share system. The bikes will be ready for Kansas city on July 3rd and spread from the Market District to the north and the downtown areas of Union Station and Crown Center to the south.
Kansas City residents build their own bike sharing network. Photo via This Big City
Mini-libraries in Bogota
Mini-libraries in Bogota, Colombia. Photo via African Library Project.
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Recently I stumbled upon this image from the African Library Project of a mini-library kiosk in Bogota, Colombia. These mini-libraries are from Paradero Para Libros Para Parques (PPP) a program whose goal is to promote literacy across the country. There are over 100 kiosks across Bogota, and according to PPP’s website, the libraries are open 12 hours per week and are staffed by volunteers who answer questions, organize activities and also help children with their homework! The program is a part of Fundalectura in association with city parks department. You can see a short video about the project here.
Advocate’s Video Helps Prioritize New Crosswalk
Last March, Adam Choit decided to make a video showing pedestrians trying to run across Sunset Boulevard in a particularly dangerous stretch where crosswalks loom far in the distance from one another. The video received a lot of attention from people who were alarmed by pedestrians taking such risks to cross the street – people like Los Angeles Walks founder and the city’s Pedestrian Advisory Committee Chair Deborah Murphy who sent the video to colleagues at the Los Angeles Department of Transportation.
In response, the Department of Transportation has added the intersection featured in this video to a list of new city crosswalks to be painted in the next fiscal year. Choit said that he thought this was a win for a more pedestrian-friendly Sunset Boulevard and says that he plans to make additional films that affect change in the city. Choit says: It’s definitely rewarding to know that hard work and having a vision can pay off, and one person really can make a difference.”
Street Artist Unlocks Potential of Neglected Spaces
Surfer in the Los Angeles River by Calder Greenwood. Photo by Stephen Zeigler via KCET Departures.
Street artist Calder Greenwood creates paper-mache sculptures of people and animals and places them around some neglected space in Los Angeles including our river (51 miles long and so important to our city’s history!), an empty pit in Downtown and a grassy knoll (also in Downtown L.A.).
Deer on Angels Knoll in Los Angeles by Calder Greenwood. Photo by thaddywarbucks via KCET Departures
These sculptures seem so out-of-place in these spaces but they allow you to imagine the potential of that particular space and in the case of the pit for example, you realize how large it actually is in comparison to a person and all of a sudden, that large space seems more like a wasted opportunity for something that can enhance our own quality of life.
Sunbathers in an empty pit in Downtown Los Angeles by Calder Greenwood. Photo by Calder Greenwood via KCET Departures.
THE ACCESSIBLE CITY 