The Smallest Park from “Parks and Recreation”

I just recently finished watching Season 4 of fave new show Parks and Recreation (and yes, I was devastated when I came to the end of the last episode being that I now have to wait until September to watch a new one!) and can honestly say that the episode titled “Smallest Park” had to be one of the best of the entire series.  I found myself in tears when (spoiler alert!) Leslie Knope (Amy Poehler) and Ben Wyatt (Adam Scott) finally got back together.  So when fellow stalker Owen gave me the address of the eponymous Smallest Park, I dragged the Grim Cheaper right on out to Studio City to stalk the place.  Well, truth be told, that’s not exactly how things happened.

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Earlier this year, before I had ever even seen an episode of the show, Owen had given me a list of several Parks and Recreation locales, one of which was the Smallest Park.  I did not stalk any of them, though, until I finally started watching the series back in May.  Flash forward to early June, when I was stalking April and Andy’s house (which I blogged about here), and realized that the abode was located just a short distance from the “Smallest Park”.  So, even though I had yet to begin watching Season 4 at the time, since we were in the area, I decided to drop by and snap some pics.  Because the Smallest Park is in actuality just a parking lot, Owen had only given me an approximate address for it.  Well, as fate would have it, when we pulled up to that address, I noticed a vacant plot of land (pictured below) across the street and immediately assumed it was the right place.  And while I did say to the GC, “It really doesn’t look all that small to me!” (LOL), I did not realize my mistake until a few weeks later when I watched the “Smallest Park” episode.  I am SUCH a blonde sometimes!  That’ll teach me to stalk a location prior to seeing the production in which it was featured!

It wasn’t until last weekend that I was finally able to get back out to Studio City to stalk the correct location – which, as you can see below, is the rear parking lot of a strip mall and does not look anything like a park, hence my original confusion.

In the “Smallest Park” episode of Parks and Recreation, Pawnee’s last remaining telephone booths are torn down, leaving a 0.000003-square-mile patch of concrete, on which Leslie and Ben (aka the “Dream Team”) decide to build the city’s “newest tourist attraction – the smallest park in Indiana”.

As you can see below, the Smallest Park was actually just a square plot of cement that producers placed at the western-most edge of the parking lot, covering up the first spot.

And while just a vacant parking lot, I could NOT have been more excited to stalk this location, most likely because the Smallest Park and the episode in which it was featured were both so incredibly memorable.  It is at the park that, in what had to be one of the series’ cutest moments EVER, Leslie tells Ben how much she misses him and the two seal their reunion with a kiss.  Sigh!  I’m tearing up just looking at the screen capture below. 

And I, of course, just had to stand where Leslie stood while she was picketing the park in the episode (and announcing its nightly midnight fireworks show) – although I was having another blonde moment at the time and accidentally had the GC snap a pic from the opposite direction of what was shown onscreen.

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Big THANK YOU to fellow stalker Owen, from the When Write Is Wrong blog, for finding this location! 

Until next time, Happy Stalking! 

Stalk It: The Smallest Park from Parks and Recreation was built in the northwesternmost parking space of the Valley Stores Shopping Center’s rear parking lot in Studio City.  The lot can be found next to the property located at 4378 Kraft Avenue in Studio City.