Coronavirus: Brooklyn park debuts ‘human parking spots’ painted in grass to encourage social distancing

Domino Park unveils painted circles in its turf for residents to sit in

A Brooklyn park has debuted “human parking spots” painted onto the grass to encourage social distancing for visitors.

Domino Park, a six-acre park located off the East River in Williamsburg, has been covered with white circles meant to encourage social distancing in the era of Covid-19.

A video shared online showed residents lounging in the circles, which are about six feet in diameter and spaced away from other circles to remind residents to not interact with others.

“They’ve made little round human parking spots in Domino Park in Brooklyn,” wrote Jennifer 8. Lee in the caption to her video.

Three months ago the idea of positioning oneself in a painted circle to lounge outside would be a bizarre concept. But now most residents have embraced the park’s guidelines and followed social distancing measures by only sitting in the circles when on the turf.

“If you were to take video footage from the world today and show it to someone from 2019, they would think it was from some near-future Hollywood dystopian television show instead of real life,” Ms Lee said.

Pictures taken on Monday also showed a majority of residents using the circles and wearing masks when at Domino Park. The public park is owned by a private company and not operated by New York City.

Mayor Bill de Blasio and other government officials have collaborated with the NYPD to encourage residents to practice coronavirus protective measures when outdoors, such as passing out masks at parks.

Signs also popped up at a number of parks and locations around the city to remind people to stay apart from others when out.

Last week the mayor said there would be limits to capacity of parks like Domino Park, Sheep Meadow in Central Park, and piers 45 and 46 in Manhattan’s Hudson River Park over the weekend. But it was not clear if or how these capacity limits were enforced.