State Street 'Park-let,' Art Event Pops Up Friday

There are pop-up stores. Now, courtesy of Park(ing) Day, meet a pop-up park.

Friday, Passarelle Investments converts three State Street parking spaces into a mini-park, complete with grass (synthetic), cafe table and chairs, a bike rack and shrubbery.

You supply the rest, as in: Use it. Sit there. Talk, interact. Create. There will be a chalk board, magnetic art. 

Need more incentive? There will be a handy bike fix-it station.

More? Wait until 6 p.m., when the live music cranks up and the artists descend at 359 State Street.

The first, is the Los Altos iteration of the Park(ing) Day event. Created in 2005 in the midst of downtown San Francisco's high-rises and pavement, Park(ing) Day encourages creation of a temporary oasis on a metered parking space for the public to enjoy.

The second is a farewell bash for the pop-up bike store to go out big and do one more community-oriented event.

"We are doing it to create a fun family-friendly event that will attract more people to downtown Los Altos," said Brooke Ray Smith of Passarelle Investments, which secured permission from the city to create the temporary public space, and is the owner of buildings where the pop-up park is being created.

Smith said Passarelle wanted to promote downtown businesses and "enhance the civic identity of the town."

"Enhance" might indeed, be the word. Los Altos' participation for the first time puts the town on a global map along with the 160-plus cities in 30-plus countries that participated last year, Ray said. Los Altos becomes the first participant from Silicon Valley, joining such disparate and larger cities as Hong Kong Munich, and Charleston, S.C. 

Rebar, the design group that created the first temporary park (two hours) on Mission Street near First Street in 2005, calls it an "annual open-source global event where citizens, artists and activists collaborate to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into public spaces."

To get to the artists part, we turn to 359 State Street, the pop-up bike store that is directly in front of the pop-up park. 

Matthew McDonald, manager of the bike shop, is hosting Los Altos Art & Bike Charity, a fundraiser for World Bike Relief, beginning at 6 p.m. "til late."

He's teamed up the Method Makers, who curate talented, emerging local artists, to benefit World Bike Relief. They're bringing artists and original works of art and photography donated from the artists, live sketch art and paint, sculptures, a silent auction, a raffle, music, and evening refreshments. There's even a 12-foot tall Benjamin Bufano sculpture making an appearance.

The money raised will go toward the purchase of Buffalo Bikes, specially designed for punishing field conditions, locally assembled bicycles for students, disaster relief efforts, healthcare workers, and entrepreneurs in rural Africa.

"We had a good run here, learned a lot, and hopefully left a positive impression for the local economy and cycling in general, McDonald said.