You know how awkward it is to sit on a park bench while balancing your sandwich on your lap at the same time as trying to find a place to put your iced tea, only to remember that the benches are not exactly flat? Anything that touches the ground for a moment is set upon by pigeons and squirrels. And at lunch time, getting a spot in Bushnell Park is not a given unless you want to be seated where you can stare off in enchantment at Elm Street, soothed by the sounds of food trucks.
Now, you can dine, or just park yourself, at one of the red tables set up outside of the Pump House Gallery in Bushnell Park or in other locations Downtown.
The tables are not many, but for a thirty minute stretch in the noon hour, only one table was occupied.
Mike Zaleski
More tables and chairs have been ordered. Different colors, too. We have been doing this up on Main Street for about two weeks now and butt traffic has steadily increased.
Kerri Provost
People seem really shy about investigating. I’m like “there’s something to sit on. I’m going to do that until I’m told not to.”
The chairs are much more comfortable than they look.
Avery Buell
Who’s paying for the chairs/tables? I “bought” my wife a Bushnell Park bench (refinished) overlooking the pond for her birthday a couple of years ago. Might be fun and very helpful to do the same sort of thing in this instance. Ownership within a particularly good idea is a very attractive and genuine incentive to participate in a more enticing downtown scene.
Kerri Provost
It’s something that the Hartford Business Improvement District is doing.