Aaron Naparstek
AARON NAPARSTEK is the founder and former editor-in-chief of Streetsblog. Based in Brooklyn, New York, Naparsteks journalism, advocacy and community organizing work has been instrumental in growing the bicycle network, removing motor vehicles from parks, and developing new public plazas, car-free streets and life-saving traffic-calming measures across all five boroughs. Naparstek is the author of "Honku: The Zen Antidote for Road Rage" (Villard, 2003), a book of humorous haiku poetry inspired by the endless motorist sociopathy observed from his apartment window. Prior to launching Streetsblog, Naparstek worked as an interactive media producer, pioneering some of the Web's first music web sites, online communities, live webcasts and social networking services. Naparstek is currently in Cambridge with his wife and two young sons where he is enjoying a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He has a master's degree from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a bachelor's degree from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. Naparstek is a co-founder of the Park Slope Neighbors community group and the Grand Army Plaza Coalition. You can find more of his work here: http://www.naparstek.com.
Recent Posts
BYO Bike Lane
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Looking to circumvent a citywide bike lane injunction or avoid bike lane-related Community Board histrionics? Alex Tee and Evan Gant from the product design firm Altitude Inc. have a novel solution for you: Use laser beams to project your own lane from the back of your bicycle. Gant tells me that he and Tee developed […]
Get Ready for Streetsblog San Francisco
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How come so many posts on San Francisco lately? Let’s make it official: The Open Planning Project will be launching Streetsblog San Francisco in January 2009. After interviewing many highly qualified candidates during last month’s RailVolution conference, we’ve hired Bryan Goebel as the site’s editor and Matthew Roth as full-time reporter. Bryan is a veteran […]
Budnick v. Anderson on “Talk of the Nation” This Afternoon
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Transportation Alternatives’ Noah Budnick will be on NPR’s "Talk of the Nation" this afternoon at 3 p.m. EST. He’ll be debating Rob Anderson, the one-man wrecking crew who filed the 2006 environmental impact law suit that stopped San Francisco from building out its citywide bicycle network. I don’t think "Talk of the Nation" is available […]
More Park(ing) Day: San Fran Rolls Out the Parkcycle
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I was pretty sure that New York City had San Francisco beat for this year’s Park(ing) Day, what, with the children’s reading hour and the on-street gymnasium in Brooklyn; Staten Island and Queens getting in on the act; and German tourists frolicking on the sod in front of the MoMA (all captured by StreetFilms, […]
Why is There a Picnic in My Parking Spot?
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Park(ing) in Park Slope, Brooklyn, May 6, 2006. The sign says, "Public space reclamation in progress." Today is International Park(ing) Day, the day when urban dwellers all around the world reclaim on-street parking spaces for purposes more creative and life-affirming than private motor vehicle storage. If you found a bunch of kids playing in an […]
Dude, Where’s My Bike Lane?
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Here is another clever video from San Francisco; this one chronicles the case of the missing bike lane. I think it is safe to say that gas stations and bike lanes don’t mix.
Park(ing) Day is Coming
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Depressed about the direction Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan is heading? Cheer yourself up by starting to plan for Park(ing) Day 2007. Friday, September 21 is the day when urban dwellers the world over pop quarters into parking meters and take over on-street spaces, temporarily transforming them into miniature parks, playgrounds, cafés and community spaces. […]
Streetfilms: Park(ing) Day San Francisco
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Park(ing) Day San FranciscoA Clarence Eckerson StreetfilmRunning time: 6:51 – 22.05 MB, QuickTime New York City Streets Renaissance Filmmaker Clarence Eckerson happened to be in San Francisco on Thursday during International Park(ing) Day. Organized by an art collective called Rebar Group, the idea behind Park(ing) is to reclaim curbside automobile parking spaces by temporarily transforming […]