The Pop-Up Lunch City

Improvement of public space is a hot topic these days. All kinds of idea makers seem to expand the function of the public realm by adding new objects, both legally and illegally, that serve fresh activities. Ali Pulver, the woman behind Pop-Up Lunch, must have been slightly frustrated about the lack of places to have lunch in public space in Manhattan. Where should we eat? “Sometimes I just wish there was a place right next to the carts to just saddle up and tuck in”, Midtown Lunch writes (neat blog by the way). Yeah, there are parks and stuff, but why not start a ‘sidewalk eating’ project?

“I am exploring how nontraditional public spaces – like sidewalks – might be easily transformed into lively places to lunch. This blog follows a series of Pop-Up Lunches I have staged (some big, some small) and my development of mobile eating tools designed for the sidewalks of NYC.”

And so she did. On his blog, Ali shows all kinds of interventions she did to make having lunch more easy on the busy sidewalks of New York City, and to rethink the function of the sidewalk of being “more than just pathways”. Furthermore, she hopes to stimulate fellow New Yorkers to act in the same way. Power to the pop-up lunch!