Knit Washington Square Park

Posted May 21, 2006 by in Events

Massive Knit is holding a "knitting mob" dedicated to the memory of pionerring activist-writer Jane Jacobs. Bring your knitting needles to Washington Square Park at 5:30 on Tuesday, May 23, toparticipate in this excellent collective project:

We would like to provide a collective, connected, community of individuals to honor the late Jane Jacobs who passed away on April 25, 2006. Jane Jacobs was an activist, a community leader, a writer, an urban planner, and a hero to many people. One of her great feats was as the chairman of the Joint Committee to Stop the Lower Manhattan Expressway. This expressway would have run through Washington Square Park. We plan to gather in this park on the 23rd of May to memorialize her and her ideas. We want to convene as a community in a loving and subtle way, honoring the park as well as her memory. We plan to do this by knitting the park together.

Knitting is a solitary art form, often resulting in gifts for others. A knitting circle allows one to be social with this solitary art. A city, likewise, is a solitary place to live. There is so much crowding and destination in daily life that one often gets lost in their own world. Parks allow people to come together and be alone peacefully in their solitary life and form temporary and permanent communities. Parks and knitting circles are both public and accessible: but private enough that one can have meaningful communication and a community within their confines.

Using individual sensibilities. We plan to create an open structure in the park. Connecting various elements of the park together such as trees, benches and other structures, we will connect a community and a memory. As people enter the park (the meeting spot is under the arch) they will be directed to a spot in the park to start knitting. People can arrive anytime starting at 5.30 p.m. and stay as long as they like. They should tie, knit, string together long thin pieces of material, and before leaving, tie the material off to a piece of the park, or another individuals yarn. By the end of the evening we should have a string of material connecting the park together. We will have connected to the park and to the other individuals as a community.

Check out their blog at massiveknit.blogspot.com for more information and good discussion of Jane Jacobs' ideas and the city's ugly proposed remodelling of Washington Square Park. I wouldn't miss this one for anything.

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