A past thread was focused on actual clubs…easy to find on the web. Here’s a question that is definitely word of mouth.
What cities have parks that have chess activity? Washington Square in New York comes to mind…and I’ve seen folks in a downtown park in Jacksonville, FL. Anyone have cities / locations for other park activity?
The lake front in the River North area of Chicago has a pavilion where chess players hang out all Summer.
I know I’ve seen a list of these on the internet somewhere, but it may no longer exist. I just tried google and couldn’t find it, but I didn’t look very hard, either.
Are you just talking outdoor parks, or any non-club where people just show up and hang out playing? I know some book stores where people do that, too.
As for outdoors chess, Quiet Waters Park in Deerfield Beach, FL has a huge annual Renaissance Faire for 5 weekends in February and March, which has chess among it’s many attractions. They actually have 3 of those giant plastic boards with the 2 foot tall plastic pieces just sitting out for anyone to use. I usually perform as a juggling jester at the area Ren faires, but I’ve never performed at that particular faire. I auditioned this year, and when they said they already had a jester in the main cast and didn’t want me doing that, I told them I’d be happy to be the resident chess expert, just hanging out by their big chess sets challenging all comers. As it turns out, I was too busy to commit to performing that faire, but I’ve still gone a couple of times to hang out with my Rennie friends and see some of the shows. This past Sunday, I got a couple of good games of chess in while I was there, too.
In my mind I picture parks where if you don’t know who the fish is, it’s probably you 
. But that just makes me think of Smythescript and T-U-N-A-F-I-S-H 
. Or it’s just the pain meds from knee surgery…I’ll definitely miss these in a few days.
On the main drag in Honolulu by Waikki beach there are pavillions with picnic tables. At one them there was quite a bit of chess going on.
Well, I’m from NYC, so obviously I know quite a few places to go. As insinuated above in another post, however, I wouldn’t necessarily play there unless I was ready to shell out some money. 
That said…you can pretty much always find a game at Washington Square Park (Searching for Bobby Fischer, anyone?) And if that’s not your cup of tea, you can always walk two blocks south of the park on Thomson I believe, and you will see two or three chess shops to play at.
In Atlanta, Georgia there is Woodruff Park. I believe there are even biweekly tournaments in Wednesdays around lunch hour.
Yup I used to play there from 1999 - 2002 or so.
Back in 1999 I used to go there and play on Friday nights sometime then went to Eurasia nightclub. Then at about 4:00 AM when we all left the club, people were still playing chess. Can you believe it? A 24/7 chess club at a wonderful beach! At anytime during the day you will find someone to play chess against!
Chico, California downtown plaza has an area with some chess tables. There are also small patio like areas where local chess players set up big chess sets and play all comers on Saturday during Farmer’s market and Thursday night Market. The top picture on my website was taken at one of the chess tables in the park (ruthharing.com) and I have a picture of my son playing on one of the larger sets in the other area on my facebook page.
The outdoor patio in front of the Au Bon Pain at Mass. Ave. and Dunster Street in Harvard Square, Cambridge, Mass.
I played a little at the parks in Chicago one time, but it’s been awhile. Washington Park in Springfield, Ill. has some chess tables installed a few years ago, but they don’t seem to get much traffic. At least one of them has a dark square in the right-hand corner. Oops!
Pioneer Square in downtown Portland Oregon has some chess play in the out of doors.
Russell Miller, Camas WA
PS: Maybe this is the kind of list that USCF should have on their website.
In another topic on USCF issues, I submitted…
“WHERE TO PLAY CHESS” includes parks,churches,recreation centers,bookstores,coffee shops,malls, etc. where chess is played formally or informally. I believe this would spark discussion and interest.
Sadly, I don’t see this ever happening with the current USCF. 
This is a very interesting topic that could be a published column in Chess Life. We are always discussing how the world has changed with regard to information sharing, and this topic is about something that helps to promulgate more chess playing. I have found that people are interested in locations where they can pick up a friendly game of chess: I keep a poster up in the local library, which gets some results.
Seconded!
Better perhaps to put this on the web site so people can look it up when they need it, and not use paper to publish the same list monthly. That would require a volunteer to check every six months or so to make sure chess was still being played at the locations on the list.
I plan to visit San Francisco and would like to know where people gather for street chess. Any suggestions? Berkeley and Oakland, too, if anyone knows. Thanks.
In the early 2000’s, someone from the Metrowest chess club wrote to Chess Life.
They asked if a few pages each month could be devoted to the chess club.
In a short, curt answer, it was basically no.
In the June 2009 Chess Life, there was a very nice article written about the Fresno Chess Club.
It was called Blueprint for success: How to grow your local chess club.
I can’t remember the last time there was an article on the Chess Club.
The Chess Club or where to develop and play chess is not a priority for the USCF.
In order for the USCF and chess to grow, everyone will need to be a volunteer in someway. When I was the president of a long and still existing great Chess Club, I required 2 mandatory things every member had to do besides paying dues.
The 2nd item is the voluntary thing everyone should do.
When you are at a park and a stranger walks up to watch your game, at minimum, acknowledge them.
Maybe ask if they play or would like to play.
This sounds simple but not commonly done.
Morro Bay, California, has permanent chess boards on tables surrounding their outdoor chess board on the Embarcadero. A group of players gather regularly on Saturdays from about 10 a.m. to at least 3 p.m. to play on these boards; and to make the large pieces for the outdoor chess board available for visitors to play on.
Bamac