Corner Park
A common on N Ohio St

Corner Park

On the corner of N Ohio St there is a small piece of public land that the neighbors look after. Kids swing from its trees, a neighbor grows vegetables there for Arlington families who need them, and bees work the beds. We want it to become the place where the whole street meets, shaped a little at a time by the people who use it.

A starting point. Everything on this page is open to change, and the best place to change it is the bench at the next mug hour.

Why a corner matters

This vision leans on A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander and colleagues (1977). Each of its 253 “patterns” names a problem that keeps coming up when people build places, and then offers a solution. We picked three that describe this corner closely. The numbers are the book’s own; the asterisks are its way of saying how sure the authors were.

67Common Land ✱✱
“Without common land no social system can survive.”

Streets once did this job on their own. Now that streets carry cars, the book says common land “must be provided, separately, and with deliberation, as a social necessity, as vital as the streets.” It does two things: it lets people feel comfortable outside their own property, and it “acts as a meeting place for people.”

One line reads like a note about our corner: be wary of the automobile; on no account let it dominate this land. The book also lists a vegetable garden (177) among the functions common land should hold. We already have one.

here →The swings, the picnic bench, the garden and the bees mean the corner already works as common land. The job now is to shape it on purpose.
69Public Outdoor Room ✱✱
“There are very few spots along the streets of modern towns and neighborhoods where people can hang out, comfortably, for hours at a time.”

An indoor community room feels too committing, and an open lawn gives people too little “reason to be there.” The book asks for “a framework which is just enough defined so that people naturally tend to stop there,” and it conjectures that “a small open space, roofed, with columns, but without walls at least in part, will just about provide the necessary balance of ‘openness’ and ‘closedness.’”

Therefore:

Make a piece of the common land into an outdoor room: “a partly enclosed place, with some roof, columns, without walls, perhaps with a trellis; place it beside an important path and within view of many homes.”

here →Someday this might be a pergola. But the book suggests leaving an outdoor room “unfinished, with the understanding it can be finished by people who live nearby,” so it should grow out of how people actually use the corner.
124Activity Pockets ✱
“The life of a public square forms naturally around its edge. If the edge fails, then the space never becomes lively.”

People don’t linger in the middle of an open space. They “stay or go, according to a process of gradual involvement.” A parent pauses at a bench while the kids swing, a passerby stops at the mini library, and a neighbor walking a dog notices the Friday crowd and drifts over. The edge has to offer places where stopping comes naturally.

here →Keep the middle open for play and put the places to sit, lean, read and chat around the edges, especially on the street side, where people already walk past.

What’s here

7,261 square feet of public land

The lot is a five-sided piece of public land: about 78 feet along N Ohio St, 94 feet along the neighbors’ side, and up to about 75 feet across. Big trees shade the north half, where the swings hang. The southern middle is an open, sunny field. The gardens and the bees run down the east side. Tap a number to read about it.

Plan of the corner lot on N Ohio St, showing the swings, ninja line, picnic bench, open field, gardens, bee hive and young trees neighbors neighbors N OHIO ST open field full sun, no shade shade ↑ N 01020 ft
the lot (county parcel line) trees (big canopies approximate) garden beds

What makes a place like this alive

A lawn with a swing is a play area. A place becomes a common when it has four things: somewhere for kids to play, something to watch, something to do, and somewhere for grown-ups to sit together. We already have a good start on each. Below are the small things that would make each one cozier, with the book’s reasoning behind them. Every item is something a neighbor or a group of neighbors can take on.

anyone can startno permission or tools needed a work morninga few people and a Saturday county OK firstanything fixed to public land

Somewhere to play

Connected Play (68) · Adventure Playground (73) · Tree Places (171)

Pattern 69 lists what children need: sand lots, mud, plants, and water to play with in the open. Pattern 73 argues that raw materials they can move around serve kids better than finished equipment. Pattern 68 says children need other children close by, on land that connects their homes. This lot connects a dozen houses. It isn’t a ball field, though. Windows nearby have been broken before, so catch, soccer and kickball belong on the big field at Nottingham Elementary.

We have
  • Stumps and loose parts (73)anyone can startStumps, log rounds, planks and rope that kids can roll around, climb and build with. Knee-high rounds double as seats for the grown-ups.
  • A sunflower houseanyone can startPlant sunflowers in a square and leave a gap for the door. By August the kids have a room of their own.
  • Ask the kidsanyone can startHand out paper and crayons one Friday and ask what the corner should have. The kids use it most, so they should get a say.
stump watch →If a tree is coming down anywhere nearby, ask the crew to leave a few rounds and let everyone know. Bring a dolly and roll them over. Big ones become seats, and small ones become stepping stones.

Something to watch

Activity Pockets (124) · Vegetable Garden (177) · Garden Growing Wild (172)

Nobody decides to spend an evening somewhere. They stay or go, according to a process of gradual involvement (124). Something worth watching gives people that first reason to slow down. Parents watch the swings, passersby watch the garden, and everyone watches the bees.

We have
  • A bee-watching loga work morningSomewhere to sit at a safe distance from the hive, with a small sign about the bees and who looks after them.
  • A sign for the garden (177)anyone can startWith the gardener’s blessing, a small sign explaining who tends the beds and where the harvest goes. Passersby will know to look and not pick, and home gardeners will know where to donate their own extra produce.
  • A wild strip (172)anyone can startLet a strip along the edge of the field grow into flowers the bees like, and mow it once a year.
  • Pools of light (252)a work morningWarm solar string lights, low and patchy rather than one bright floodlight, for the fall Fridays when it gets dark early.

Something to do

Communal Eating (147) · Activity Pockets (124) · Public Outdoor Room (69)

A common needs a place which has a subtle balance of being defined and yet not too defined, so that any activity which is natural to the neighborhood at any given time can develop freely and yet has something to start from (69). The book’s own examples are modest ones, like games like chess and checkers. Eating together might be the oldest of them.

We have
  • A fall potluck, block-party style (147)anyone can startIn Arlington, neighbors can close their street for a block party with a county permit. We don’t need to close anything, because the corner is already a place to gather. One fall evening, everyone brings a dish, the kids take over the field, and nobody has to move their car.
  • Potluck mug hours (147)anyone can startNow and then a mug hour turns into a potluck. Whoever feels like it brings a dish, and the picnic bench becomes the buffet.
  • A games box, facing the parkanyone can startCornhole, a chess set, chalk and bubbles in a deck box that opens toward the field, for people who are already here. Whoever’s around sets them up, and everything goes back in the box.
  • A mini library, facing the street (124)county OK firstA small book box on a post at the edge of the lot, facing out so people walking by stop to browse. Stopping to browse is often the first step toward staying. It’s the outward-facing twin of the games box, and a design is already in the works.
  • The corner board (124)county OK firstA board announcing the next mug hour, upcoming big nights and who needs a hand. It could share a post with the mini library. This is where coordination starts.
  • A few big nightsanyone can startMovie night on the open field, a pumpkin-carving evening, a spring cleanup day. Three or four a year is plenty.

Somewhere to sit together

Seat Spots (241) · Hierarchy of Open Space (114) · Different Chairs (251)

Seating is what turns a play area into somewhere adults stay. Pattern 69 notes that open land provides too little shelter, and too little ‘reason to be there,’ while a closed room is too intimate to allow a casual passing interest to build up gradually. Right now we have one picnic bench, and one bench seats one group.

We have
a roof, someday leaning wall: listen in,no commitment low table one faces out a way out beside every chair
After the sketch of a public outdoor room by Dave Chapin and George Gordon in Cleveland, Ohio, reproduced in pattern 69.
  • A back and a view. People settle where something is behind them and they can look out at something bigger: the field, the swings, the street. (114)
  • Shade in July, sun in October. The north trees give the first and the edge of the field gives the second. (241)
  • Seats facing in, 6 chairs at comfortable conversation distance, but some chairs face out to give a choice. (the Cleveland sketch)
  • An easy way out. A conversation easy to break is more likely to begin in the first place. (the Cleveland sketch)
  • Somewhere to lean, for people who want to listen in but not want to make a commitment to getting into the conversation. (the Cleveland sketch)
  • Something in the middle: a low table to be behind and feel less exposed. (the Cleveland sketch)
  • Not all the same chairs. Mix low and high, benches and armchairs, including pairs of chairs with wide arms and general massiveness to wrap around and protect you. (251, the Cleveland sketch)
  • Beside the path, so a neighbor walking by can stop and join in gradually. (124)
  • A second, longer table (147)a work morningOne long table for potluck nights, so that two groups can share one meal.
  • A leaning rail (243)county OK firstA rail at elbow height along the edge of the field, for parents watching the swings and neighbors who have only stopped for a minute.
  • Benches with a back to something (241)county OK firstTwo or three benches facing the field, each backed by a trunk or a planting.
  • Someday, a roof (69)county OK firstA small open-sided shelter with posts and a roof, built wherever a season of mug hours shows people naturally gather. Where it goes is the last decision, not the first.

How it grows

by the people who use it

Pattern 69 puts it plainly: once people start to gather around a framework, there is a good chance that they will themselves, if they are permitted, create an environment which is appropriate to their activities. So we build light things first, see what gets used, and only then build the lasting ones.

  1. Now

    Gather

    Mug hour, some Fridays at six, whenever someone calls one in the newsletter. Nothing else needs to happen first.

  2. This fall

    Ask

    Walk the lot together. Kids draw what they want, and adults write ideas on the board. The neighbors on either side get the first say on what happens near their homes.

  3. Fall into winter

    Try it light

    A games box, a pile of stumps and string lights. We watch where people sit, where kids play and what gets ignored.

  4. Spring

    Build what proved itself

    At work mornings, we make the things the trial showed people want: a bench, a sand pit, a leaning rail. Anything fixed to the land goes to the county for approval first.

  5. Later

    Maybe a roof

    Once we know where people naturally gather, a small open-sided room can go there. It can become the place to coordinate everything else.

Ways to take part

Mug hour host
Call a Friday in the newsletter, bring the lights, open the games box and say hello to new faces.
Stump scouts
Watch for trees coming down nearby, and help roll the rounds over.
Librarians
Keep the mini library stocked, sorted and dry.
Kids’ council
The kids who use the lot decide what goes in the games box and what gets built from the stumps.
Builders
Anyone with a drill and a free Saturday for benches, the sand pit and later the roof.
County liaison
One person who talks to the county about what’s allowed on the land and gets approvals.
Keepers
Check the swing ropes and the ninja line each season, and look after the bees with whoever keeps them.

What we don’t know yet

Neighbors can answer these faster than any drawing can.

  • What the county allows on its parcel (benches, a board, lights, a structure), and whom to ask.
  • Exactly where the big trees stand and how far their shade reaches at six o’clock in June and in October.
  • Who keeps the bees, and how much room the hive needs.
  • What the neighbors on either side need to stay comfortable: noise, sight lines, how late.

How we look after it

The neighbors on either side of the corner look after this land. It stays open to everyone because everyone looks after it a little.

Leave it as you found it
Take home whatever you bring, toys included.
Keep the house edges quiet
Gather in the middle and along the sidewalk, not under someone’s window.
Wind down by nine
Voices carry after dark.
Look, don’t pick
A neighbor tends the garden, and its harvest goes to Plot Against Hunger, the Arlington Food Assistance Center’s program for fresh produce.
Little ones on the swings
Keep a grown-up within reach.
No ball throwing
Gentle play is fine, but windows have been broken before. For catch and soccer, the Nottingham Elementary field is a short walk away.
Give the bees room
Watch the hive from a distance and keep kids’ games away from it.

Get the newsletter

Mug hours happen when someone feels like hosting one, so the newsletter is how you’ll hear about them, along with big nights, stump sightings and anything that needs a hand. It only goes out when something’s happening.

Want to host a mug hour or take on anything on this page? Find us at the bench.