OB Locals Make Fun in the Round-A-Bout at Greene (Street) Square

Dangerous “intersection” results in a block party

OCEAN BEACH, CA. Heather Clark almost got hit in the huge intersection at Greene Street and Froude in northeast Ocean Beach. As she lives just off the weird intersection, she’s witnessed countless near-misses as vehicles careen crazily through the paved open space. It’s not really an intersection, but simply a paved over box that takes up half a block. Heather says she was told by some of the neighbors that it used to be a cable car station, and when the cable car was taken out, they took the station down, but didn’t build anything to take its place. But the place is still a dangerous area.

Heather Clark wanted to do something. She hit on an idea. Have a block party and promote a safe alternative – a round-a-bout. She called it “Greene Square” and gathered up a few friends and went door-to-door in the immediate neighborhood to have residents sign her permit that she had to get from the City of San Diego. She printed up some large fliers and posted them throughout the neighborhood. She shelled out her own money and rented several dozen saw-horses and orange vests. She rallied her neighbors and tonight they pulled it off – of course the weather was no friend – but nearly 2 dozen friends and locals dropped by her event, with sawhorses enclosing a make-shift round-a-bout, with a group playing badminton, kids drawing on the asphalt with chalk, newsmedia and blogsters dropping by, passersby walking over, intrigued.

Heather would eventually like to see a garden in the middle of the space. She’s into gardens. And so are we. We applaud her and the efforts she and her friends made to put “Greene Square” together. We hope they keep at it. A garden inside a round-a-bout would be perfect.