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public spaces
Jul. 1st, 2004 11:31 pmI heard band music as I was walking home this evening. I looked up from my book (technically, the library's book -- Queen's Play), and realized that there really was a band playing somewhere nearby, in the big courtyard between the library and the town hall. It's a lovely space, and it was full of formally-dressed people milling about with drinks. I wondered what the occasion was. Thursday afternoon is an odd time for a wedding, and it's too late in the year for a graduation party. Could it be a very early, very placid, celebration of Independence Day? Or was some nice person hiring a band and providing drinks to share some private joy with the community?
I didn't walk into the courtyard, of course. Everyone there was wearing such fancy clothes, and not carrying anything at all, or just those hand-sized little formal purses. I felt scruffy and out of place in my sweaty work clothes and backpack. Working in a group where almost everyone wears jeans and t-shirts (or shorts and tank tops), these clothes had seemed to carry faint positive messages about my professional status. In this crowd, they'd just make me look poor and untidy.
There were police cars parked on the main road with their lights flashing. (It was close enough to sunset for this to be a major problem for me.) There were a couple of charter buses parked in the no-parking zone. As I walked along the sidewalk between the library and the town hall, I noticed an awful lot of police officers, standing around with their hands behind their backs. While I no longer believe that police officers are my friends, or that they are a generally useful source of information when I'm lost, the Arlington Police have never lied to me, to my knowledge. So I asked one of them what was going on. He said the party was part of the big conference of mayors they've been having in Boston all week. I thanked him for the information and went home.
Starting next week, and continuing for most of the summer, there are going to be free concerts open to the public in a little park on the other side of Arlington Center. I went to some of the public concerts last year, and they felt friendly and welcoming -- worthwhile community-building, even when I didn't like the music. It seems strange to have the private concert for the mayors in the town hall courtyard, with so many police to keep people away. It's not that I wanted to go, or that I think such events ought to be open to the public. It just looks unsettling, so close to the free public concerts sponsored by car dealers and such, presumably without the new "security" that's so careful to keep all the important people (such as politicians) so well segregated from everyone else.
I didn't walk into the courtyard, of course. Everyone there was wearing such fancy clothes, and not carrying anything at all, or just those hand-sized little formal purses. I felt scruffy and out of place in my sweaty work clothes and backpack. Working in a group where almost everyone wears jeans and t-shirts (or shorts and tank tops), these clothes had seemed to carry faint positive messages about my professional status. In this crowd, they'd just make me look poor and untidy.
There were police cars parked on the main road with their lights flashing. (It was close enough to sunset for this to be a major problem for me.) There were a couple of charter buses parked in the no-parking zone. As I walked along the sidewalk between the library and the town hall, I noticed an awful lot of police officers, standing around with their hands behind their backs. While I no longer believe that police officers are my friends, or that they are a generally useful source of information when I'm lost, the Arlington Police have never lied to me, to my knowledge. So I asked one of them what was going on. He said the party was part of the big conference of mayors they've been having in Boston all week. I thanked him for the information and went home.
Starting next week, and continuing for most of the summer, there are going to be free concerts open to the public in a little park on the other side of Arlington Center. I went to some of the public concerts last year, and they felt friendly and welcoming -- worthwhile community-building, even when I didn't like the music. It seems strange to have the private concert for the mayors in the town hall courtyard, with so many police to keep people away. It's not that I wanted to go, or that I think such events ought to be open to the public. It just looks unsettling, so close to the free public concerts sponsored by car dealers and such, presumably without the new "security" that's so careful to keep all the important people (such as politicians) so well segregated from everyone else.
