Public Spaces
The other week I was walking past the library in Monrovia with my family, Neo-Norman Rockwell style. I was pushing the stroller, but my daughter wasn’t in it. She was running ahead and then running back. I was holding hands with my wife. The sun was out, but there was a nice breeze. Bluebirds were singing. Firemen were playing cards or napping in the station, waiting for a call to rescue a kitten from a well maintained tree. If I could whistle, I would have been. Get the picture?
OK, so public spaces; parks mostly, but also downtown benches, bus stops… where else? Any place outside of the gated compound with its razor wire and crew of 401kd security guards… The problem with these places is that you don’t really get a say in who else occupies them.
Like, for example, you may be walking along with your family, zipadeedoodah, when next thing you know four kids from the continuation school are stepping up on three kids who sort of used to go there, and then they are throwing punches and rocks, and one of them grabs another one’s bike and rides off, and they’re all expressing themselves in language that is at least PG-13. So then you run over and grab your daughter and march straight over to the police station to call the red phone in the lobby and tattle. This is still Mayberry, after all.
Now, I am not going to come out here as being opposed to all rumbles in the park. I am as big a fan of S.E. Hinton as the next guy, and I realize that the Socs and the Outsiders need to have some way of settling their differences, of deciding who sits where in the cafeteria and who controls the cold drinking fountain. But, I do propose that we implement a more rigid schedule for park use. When rumbles overlap with happy family walks, I think we can all agree that there is a problem. Dog training, hangover recovery, sleeping while homeless, riding the swings, taking part in role playing games, patriotic music concert attendance, frisbeeing, tai chi, happy family walking, and rumbling are not all compatible activities. I think we should get together and talk about who gets the park when. It doesn’t seem to me that we should have too much trouble dividing the day into reasonable sections that will satisfy all of our diverse public space use needs. We’ll have a convention! But where should we meet? Maybe we could get together at Library Park.
The other week I was walking past the library in Monrovia with my family, Neo-Norman Rockwell style. I was pushing the stroller, but my daughter wasn’t in it. She was running ahead and then running back. I was holding hands with my wife. The sun was out, but there was a nice breeze. Bluebirds were singing. Firemen were playing cards or napping in the station, waiting for a call to rescue a kitten from a well maintained tree. If I could whistle, I would have been. Get the picture?
OK, so public spaces; parks mostly, but also downtown benches, bus stops… where else? Any place outside of the gated compound with its razor wire and crew of 401kd security guards… The problem with these places is that you don’t really get a say in who else occupies them.
Like, for example, you may be walking along with your family, zipadeedoodah, when next thing you know four kids from the continuation school are stepping up on three kids who sort of used to go there, and then they are throwing punches and rocks, and one of them grabs another one’s bike and rides off, and they’re all expressing themselves in language that is at least PG-13. So then you run over and grab your daughter and march straight over to the police station to call the red phone in the lobby and tattle. This is still Mayberry, after all.
Now, I am not going to come out here as being opposed to all rumbles in the park. I am as big a fan of S.E. Hinton as the next guy, and I realize that the Socs and the Outsiders need to have some way of settling their differences, of deciding who sits where in the cafeteria and who controls the cold drinking fountain. But, I do propose that we implement a more rigid schedule for park use. When rumbles overlap with happy family walks, I think we can all agree that there is a problem. Dog training, hangover recovery, sleeping while homeless, riding the swings, taking part in role playing games, patriotic music concert attendance, frisbeeing, tai chi, happy family walking, and rumbling are not all compatible activities. I think we should get together and talk about who gets the park when. It doesn’t seem to me that we should have too much trouble dividing the day into reasonable sections that will satisfy all of our diverse public space use needs. We’ll have a convention! But where should we meet? Maybe we could get together at Library Park.
posted by kyle at 10:16 PM
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