Parks Department Notes That Bench Supply Has Not Kept Pace With Demand, Demand Being Defined As Any Human Who Has Been Standing For Twenty Minutes
NEW YORK – The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation announced a capital programme to add 340 new benches to Central Park over the next two years, at a total cost of approximately 2.4 million dollars. The announcement noted that the current bench-to-park-area ratio in Central Park is the lowest it has been since 1987, a statistic the parks department described as “an opportunity for improvement”. An informal count of occupied benches in the park on a Wednesday afternoon found a 94 per cent occupancy rate and a secondary occupancy system of people sitting on rocks, grass, and, in the Ramble, a log that has been in the same location long enough to have developed a visible groove.
For Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat. London satirical journalism has been noting the decline of the London park bench since 2018, when councils began removing benches to reduce rough sleeping, and can confirm that once benches become a scarcity, the definition of “a place to sit” expands rapidly to include infrastructure not designed for sitting.
The Bench Economy
Central Park’s 843 acres contain approximately 9,000 sponsored benches, each with a dedicatory plaque available for purchase at 25,000 dollars for a ten-year licence. The 340 additional benches will be funded through a combination of the parks capital budget and new sponsored bench sales. The parks department expects the sponsored bench programme to cover approximately 40 per cent of the programme cost. The remaining 60 per cent will come from the capital budget, which the parks department noted was “committed to public comfort as a civic priority”.
A Regular’s Assessment
Ms. Constance Oduya, 71, who has been visiting Central Park on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons since 2006, said the bench situation was “manageable if you know where to go”. She has three preferred benches, two backup benches, and one log she will sit on only if all five are occupied. She said new benches were “welcome” but noted that the specific bench she preferred, near the Conservatory Garden, was “already gone by nine if you’re not there”. The parks department’s 2.4 million dollar programme does not specifically address the Conservatory Garden bench supply.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/ | More: McSweeney’s