PARTY ON BARTON
The Barton Village Festival featured a patch of temporary grass to inspire those who may not be able to get to green spaces enough
Adults and kids play with a huge colourful tent on the temporary grass laid down on Barton Street for the Barton Village Festival on Saturday. Several blocks on the street were closed to traffic for the event.
Harrison Blakey obviously got a kick out of being able to play soccer in the middle of Barton Street.
The 18-month-old chased his ball in a circle, briefly fell down in the eastbound lane and bounced up again without any worries about passing cars or even asphalt-burn.
It helped that several blocks of pavement were closed to vehicle traffic for the Barton Village Festival Saturday — including about 50 metres that sprouted vivid green grass.
“He loves it and so do I. It’s nice to see some green in the street, you know?” said Harrison’s dad, Cameron Blakey.
Blakey brought his son out specifically to see the festival’s Green Street Challenge, which blanketed 4,600 square feet of street with rolls of soft-on-the-knees sod.
This is the first year Hamilton has hosted the challenge organized by Come Alive Outside. The nonprofit is hooking up with designers and landscaping companies to temporarily grass over busy streets in several Ontario cities this summer.
“We’re trying to get kids to unplug, to remind everyone about the importance of unstructured, outdoor play,” said executive director Sarah Walker, watching a chortling toddler brandish a badminton racket. “It’s also about emphasizing the importance of greening our cities and connecting our growing urban populations with a shrinking amount of natural space.”
The weekend festival was actually bookended by two popular green spaces, Woodlands and Powell parks.
Hamilton is increasingly being asked by residents to green its heavily paved core.
Nearby Beasley neighbourhood residents, for example, recently pitched a “pop-up park” in the much-maligned parking area near the corner of John and Rebecca Streets.
(The city has long promised to build a park there, but no budget money will be available before next year). Organizers rolled out and repeatedly watered enough impromptu lawn on Barton to stretch from Milton Avenue to Stirton Street Saturday.
That was enough grass to simultaneously host beanbag target practice, some careful Frisbee tossing and the chaotic use of a billowing parachute for what looked like more than one game at once.
All of the rollout grass was destined to be donated to Habitat for Humanity after the Saturday festival, Walker said.
Blakey, who describes himself as a “passionate” Barton Village resident, saw the pop-up greenery and growing annual festival as “mirroring the positive evolution” of the struggling commercial street, which is seeing more new businesses popping up in long-vacant storefronts.
The festival started off three years ago in a single park, said Barton Village BIA head Rachel Braithwaite. This year, it stretched along a closed-to-traffic section of Barton from Wentworth Street to Birch Avenue and around the corner to Powell Park.
“It has grown exponentially,” she said. “We’ve had so much community support.”