Saturday, June 26, 2004
Free Love Park!
Our new motto: "Philly—WTF!"
One of the reasons that our feckless and indifferent lame-duck Mayor, John Street, gave for turning down $1 million that would return skateboarders to Love Park (back), was that the city was going to install WiFI there, and the skateboarders would get in the way of that lofty civic goal.
So I thought I'd try it out, and I took my laptop over there. And indeed, there is WiFi in Love Park. In fact, Mayor Street's image is right on the log in screen!
And I'm here to tell you that Street's reasoning is a crock. WiFi and skatenboarding don't contradict each other, and in fact would complement each other.
Love Park is not an ideal computing environment in any case. Most of the benches are in the direct sun, and that makes the screen hard to see. Others in shade are within range of the fountain, and if there's a wind, as there is today, I'd worry about getting my laptop wet or even having it short out. So, right now I'm sitting over on a stone embankment, in the shade, blogging, but it's not very comfortable.
So Love Park is far from an ideal place to compute. In fact, there's no one here taking advantage of the WiFi but me!
On the other hand, Love Park is ideal for skateboarding. In fact, people come from all over the world to see it, for that reason. Not only would these people bring in tourist nrevenue the city sorely needs, their exploits would make my neighborhood a more engaging and livelier place.
I'd love to see skateboarders doing their thing right now. It would make my experience of the park better, not worse. Mostly, they skate on the marble rim round the fountain, and I'm not bringing my computer anywhere near the fountain.
There's really no reason for Street not to bring skateboarding back to the park. Except mulishness. Or being on the take. Philly! WTF!
One of the reasons that our feckless and indifferent lame-duck Mayor, John Street, gave for turning down $1 million that would return skateboarders to Love Park (back), was that the city was going to install WiFI there, and the skateboarders would get in the way of that lofty civic goal.
So I thought I'd try it out, and I took my laptop over there. And indeed, there is WiFi in Love Park. In fact, Mayor Street's image is right on the log in screen!
And I'm here to tell you that Street's reasoning is a crock. WiFi and skatenboarding don't contradict each other, and in fact would complement each other.
Love Park is not an ideal computing environment in any case. Most of the benches are in the direct sun, and that makes the screen hard to see. Others in shade are within range of the fountain, and if there's a wind, as there is today, I'd worry about getting my laptop wet or even having it short out. So, right now I'm sitting over on a stone embankment, in the shade, blogging, but it's not very comfortable.
So Love Park is far from an ideal place to compute. In fact, there's no one here taking advantage of the WiFi but me!
On the other hand, Love Park is ideal for skateboarding. In fact, people come from all over the world to see it, for that reason. Not only would these people bring in tourist nrevenue the city sorely needs, their exploits would make my neighborhood a more engaging and livelier place.
I'd love to see skateboarders doing their thing right now. It would make my experience of the park better, not worse. Mostly, they skate on the marble rim round the fountain, and I'm not bringing my computer anywhere near the fountain.
There's really no reason for Street not to bring skateboarding back to the park. Except mulishness. Or being on the take. Philly! WTF!
