W-iFi Hotspots:
A WiFi Hotspot provides high-speed wireless Internet access in convenient public locations.
Recently Google teamed up with the Chelsea Improvement Company to transform all of southwest Chelsea into a free W-iFi hotspot. link
This is a great start. There are other free Wi-fi hotspots in Chelsea, such as at the Flatiron Plaza and the Mulenberg Library.Others can be found here
Coldspot:No free wi-Fi
Low signal strength-spotty neighborhood coverage
High Signal srength-Whole neighborhood is a Wi-Fi hotspot.
No Fee-Fi Hotspot Ideas
Building on the success of Chelsea's free Wi-Fi hotspots, Park Chelsea has come up with a number of innovative new No Fee-Fi hotspot ideas to help transform more of Chelsea's parks and public spaces from coldspots to hotspots: Read-Fi Hotspots:
A Read-Fi HotSpot provides access to printed reading materials in convenient public locations. Chelsea has a very few free Read-Fi hotspots ,we call these libraries. But they all don't have to be libraries...
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| Bryant Park Reading Room a outdoor Read-Fi hotspot that began in 1935 |
Bryant park offers a outdoor Read-Fi hotspot called The Reading Room on 42nd st between 5th and 6th avenues.
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| The Portable Uni, a temporary Read-Fi hotspot |
We have been discussing with the people at the Uni Project, which is a portable temporary outdoor reading room,the possibility of Read-Fi enabling an outdoor space in Chelsea with a permanent Uni.
Recently a Citybench was added to Muhlenberg Library, this has turned it into a defacto outdoors Read-Fi Hotspot.
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| Proposed prototype sign to let public know that Muhlenberg is now a Read-Fi hotspot |
Muhlenberg Library offers More seating to Patrons
Rec-Fi Hotspots
Most of the Chelsea areas parks and other public open spaces contain very few active and social recreation activities for adults. We'd like to see Chelsea Rec-Fi enabled with Recreation Station Rec-Fi hot spots placed in Chelsea's parks and other public open spaces. Recreation Stations contain a variety of portable active, social and solitary recreation items.
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| Contents of Recreation Stations Hot Spots will be custom stocked for the unique needs of each location. One for seniors would contain things like mahjong, rummy-q, and scrabble, a children's one would containitems as jump ropes, hula hoops, lego sets, and toys. Shown here, a prototype Recreation Station Rec-Fi Hotspot for a Community Garden area. |
fixed location Active recreation equipment for adults.
Coldspot:no active recreation
Log signal strength: Locations that offer only 1 or 2 activities
High signal strength: locations offering a variety of activities for all age groups.
Adding a outdoor ping pong table ($700-$4000) or Fitness equipment are medium cost ways to create Fit-Fi hotspots or to increase signal strength of existing ones.
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Some Fi-Fi equipment can be placed anywhere. Here is a photo from Daug, China showing active recreation equipment that is embedded into a sidewalk.
and here's LA's just open Active Recreation parklet that has Foosball and Fitness bikes
Yes, there is foosball. (Siobhan Burke)
Enjoying one of the parklet’s exercise bikes. (Siobhan Burke)
More on Fit Fi Hotspots
Play-Fi Hot Spot
Free playspace for Children
Coldspot- no playspace
Low signal strength: 1 or 2 activities
Medium signal strength:
High signal strength: many activities
Adding a Recreation Station to a space can transform it into a Play-Fi hotspot or transform a low signal strength location into a high signal strength location.
Seat-Fi Hotspots
If you've walked around Chelsea looking for a place to sit outdoors you've noticed most of Chelsea is a coldspot with seats few and far between.. The Park Chelsea map shows all currently available outdoor Seat-Fi hotspots. The goal of Park Chelsea is to" Seat-Fi enable" all of Chelsea with a "Seat near every street" you can find our newest Seat-Fi hotspots here.
Chelsea's Desmond Tutu Center has this garden that's great to look at, but not open to the
public. It was a neighborhood coldspot.
The addition of a Citybench has transformed this from a coldspot to a Seat-Fi hotspot
Green_Fi Hotspots
A Community garden is a Green Fi hotspot. The Chelsea Garden Club has turned Chelsea's 8th/9th Ave green ways bike paths into Green-Fi hotspots. The addition of Community Gardens to NYC parks can greatly increase the number of Green_fi hotspots in Chelsea.
Coldspot-no seating
Low signal strength: Benches in a park or open space
Medium signal strength: tables with fixed seating, or benches on sidewalks
High signal strength: tables and moveable chairs
Scientific studies have shown that High signal strength Seat-Fi hotspots facilitate conversations between people link
Scientific studies have shown that High signal strength Seat-Fi hotspots facilitate conversations between people link
Green_Fi Hotspots
A Community garden is a Green Fi hotspot. The Chelsea Garden Club has turned Chelsea's 8th/9th Ave green ways bike paths into Green-Fi hotspots. The addition of Community Gardens to NYC parks can greatly increase the number of Green_fi hotspots in Chelsea.
Free-Fi Hotspot
A Free-Fi hotspot would turn a location into a place where people people could recycle goods. Chelsea's Penn South Co-op's has Free-Fi hotspots for residents in many of their laundry rooms. No reason they can't be added to more publically accessible locations.
A Free-Fi Hotspot at the Penn South Coop
Toy-Fi Hotspot
A Toy-Fi Hotspot would be a toy lending library in a convenient public locations
Toy Lending Libraries are kinda like book libraries the main
difference being you take out toys instead of books.
New Zealand, has more than 200 toy libraries and about 4 million people, in contrast to the U.S., which has the same number of toy libraries and a population of more than 300 million.
By having a top library it will provide toys to Chelsea residents who can't afford the latest, greatest and expensive toys. link
There are presently no Toy-Fi hotspots in Chelsea
. There are public libraries who have toys in their library so one possible location to create a Toy-Fi hotspot would be the Mulenberg Library.
Hi Fi Hotspots
