Canal Street — © Brian Rose

I was down on Canal the other day taking pictures of what is sometimes called the printing district, now updated to real estate friendly Hudson Square. Canal Street remains a tumultuous strip of cut-rate hardware, electronics, and jewelry shops, but some of its rough edges have been smoothed, as in the park above. It’s a pleasant, if over designed, replacement for a parking lot. Is there some way that New York parks could be designed with less predictable gentility?

Canal Street — © Brian Rose

A couple of blocks west there’s a more typical bit of Canal Street scruffiness. Here’s your inspiration for attempting an answer to the question above.