Help Parks rethink SDR Park’s openness – to be both welcoming and safe.
Help Parks Choose New Projects
Parks will select – and fund – the best eight parks to showcase the program.
On the map or through the search bar, find the park you’re interested in. Suggest ways to improve its entrances, edges, and park-adjacent spaces. Our suggestions will influence the design of the projects they select.
Parks is taking comments until the end of February 2016 and will announce the new projects this coming spring.
The more suggestions a park receives, the more likely it will be selected!
How It Works
Find out more about Parks Without Borders projects through their interactive map.
Parks Without Borders focuses on three areas of the park: entrances, edges, and park-adjacent spaces. Help unify the park with our neighborhood(s).
Make entrances more welcoming, clear and safe. Make park boundaries greener, more user friendly, and make the park safer by improving sight lines. Create new centers of positive community activity out of underused areas inside the park!
The Goals of Parks Without Borders:
Make parks more accessible and welcoming to everyone
Improve neighborhoods by extending the beauty of parks out into communities
Create vibrant public spaces by transforming underused or badly used areas
Entrances
Good entrances are inviting, drawing you in and allowing you to see into the park. They are lovely and exciting, enhanced by things like plantings or art and are easy to find from far away. Good entrances also include amenities such as seating to make them destinations for relaxation and community.
NYC Parks can improve entrances using the following tools, among others:
Entrances and Gates
Widen entrances and make sure they are well-placed; lower or remove gates; improve access for all ages and abilities
Paving
Repair paving or add distinctive pavement
Greening
Add plants and trees
Site Furnishings
Add benches, tables, and other amenities
Edges
The perimeter or edge of a park belongs to the neighborhood. More open park edges allow better views into the park. They make nearby streets feel connected to the park and park spaces accessible to the neighborhood. Low fences make park edges friendlier and more attractive. Adding seating or other amenities to edges can improve the park and the neighborhood, providing new spaces to enjoy the beauty of a park and interact with neighbors. These improvements can also make parks and streets safer by improving people’s views of both spaces.
NYC Parks will improve edges using the following tools, among others:
Fences
Lower, redesign, or remove fences and gates
Paving
Repair paving
Greening
Add plants and trees
Site Furnishings
Add benches, tables, and other amenities
Parks Without Borders is an NYC Parks initiative to make parks more open, welcoming, and beautiful by focusing on improving entrances, edges, and park-adjacent spaces. As part of OneNYC , Mayor Bill de Blasio has dedicated $50 million to the program. Visit our Parks Without Borders Information page to find out more about how this program works – and scroll down to help us choose new projects.