On Saturday, June 1, we landed at Penn South Playground in Chelsea for the second of two deployments organized in conjunction with middle and high school students from nearby Avenues: The World School. (See photos of first deployment.)
This time, we didn’t have the patron numbers we had hoped for—the heat, a public school carnival, and a wonderful flea market drew kids out of the playground.
Chelsea is a challenging neighborhood for the Uni because it lacks a central community space—the long blocks create small pockets where neighbors gather, and I think the trick is choosing which pocket to visit on a given day/time. We did meet a number of local contacts who can help us place the Uni more effectively in Chelsea in the future. Every deployment teaches us something about how to do this better for NYC neighborhoods!