WiFi – A Free Perk for Parks

Starting in July, New York’s Central Park will be the first of ten city parks offering free wireless Internet service access. Although some Manhattan parks have been offering wireless service for over two years, construction and maintenance of the hotspots were corporate sponsored. WiFi Salon provides the six available hotspots in Central Park as well as those expanding to other parks, at no cost to the city. Other parks include Prospect Park, Van Cortlandt Park, Battery Park, and Flushing Meadows.

This is probably the most monumental enhancement to Central Park since the installation of electric lights about 100 years ago. It allowed parkgoers to enjoy summer evening concerts since the early 1900s.

Does this mean that we will soon be seeing people using laptops on park benches? We might see a few. Most park benches are a too narrow to accommodate use of a notebook for a length of time with any degree of comfort. Will people start bring notebooks to picnic and recreation areas very soon? It’s hard to imagine using notebooks while lying on a blanket in Sheep Meadow. The most immediate benefit will be for users of WiFi enabled cell phones or PDA devices. Convenient notebook use requires table space for long-term use. Free tables are only available in certain picnic areas in the north and western sections or at the Checkers house toward the southern end. Apart from tables at Central Park’s two restaurants, Tavern on the Green and The Boathouse, comfortable chairs and tables are somewhat remote. If anything, you can bring your own folding table and chair.

Probably by 2007, there may be more concessions with tables (like Ferrara currently at Central Park’s southwest entrance) that will become the park’s new hot areas for sitting and clicking with notebooks of all sizes. This summer, it’s a welcome and great idea to enjoy the park for many seasons to come.

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