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Citizen complaint of the day: Sign to zoo will make tourists go ape
By adamg on Mon, 03/05/2012 - 3:25pm
Gorilla my dreams.
A concerned citizen tries to help out tourists and other infrequent visitors to the Franklin Park Zoo who might get a sudden yen for animals while puttering around the Back Bay:
This sign at the int. of Beacon and Arlington directs drivers straight down Beacon St to the Franklin Park Zoo. This is bad advice by the city since drivers will hit a lot of unnecessary red lights. The fastest way if you ask most people is a left onto Arlington, left onto Herald, and down the X-way to Columbia Rd.
The city replies by marking the case closed, because while Beacon Street might not be the best route to the zoo, the sign is neither damaged nor missing.
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Comments
Zoo signs
Funny/ironic that they're concerned with the choice of route selected, like that's the biggest problem a tourist might encounter while trying to navigate the city using the little informational signs peppered at random about our parkway system. I'd bet five bucks that there are matching signs at fewer than half of the decision points between the intersection cited and the zoo, rendering the question of route selection largely moot.
Tourists in this city would be better off closing their eyes and stamping on the accelerator blind than attempting to follow the "informational" signs provided by the MDC, or whatever they're called now.
Those zoo signs,
they're everywhere! There is nothing else in Boston with remotely as many signs pointing the way with the possible exception of the various evacuation routes. Are that many people really looking for the zoo?
It's for the benefit of the animals
They need to be entertained somehow...
For decades, everyone has
For decades, everyone has known that a zoo at Franklin Park was a bad idea without a truly massive injection of money. Rather than be honest and just kill the thing, they dribble them money, and then do things like put up signs at random far-off intersections to pretend that there's actually a plan.
If you go down American Legion Highway between Walk Hill and Morton sts., you'll see the remains of what was supposed to be a park and ride lot for the zoo. The asphalt was laid, and the thing was never used. Now, on the cracked remains of the lot, you will find city compost piles every year, where cleanup crews drop leaves. Your tax dollars in action. At least if you were around back then.
The franklin park zoo is
The franklin park zoo is great. Particularly for the kiddies. If you haven't been there, it's def worth the trip, and there is parking right on site.
Great if you have low
Great if you have low expectations. San Diego zoo is great. Franklin Park is a good time for the kiddies.
Been to Both
Franklin is great for smaller children because you can see the whole thing in a day. The animals are far better cared for than they were previously.
Zoos like the San Diego Zoo and the Oregon Zoo are in a class by themselves, but you cannot make the whole thing in a day because they are truly huge.
So why is a zoo in Franklin Park a bad idea?
Seems ideally located. Lots of easy ways to reach it by vehicle or by bus (even train, if you know where you're going from Green St. or Forest Hills). It's in one of the city's grandest parks. What's the problem? Why would people not want to go there?
Zoo
Ahhh, because they are racist. Oh,no, this is "Liberal"Boston.
Because what NotWhitey won't say
is that-gasp!-brown people live around there!
No, because you have no clue of the zoo's history
Whereas NotWhitey does. It's not a matter of race but of the fact that the thing has been starved for funds for not years, but decades and that every so often it looks like the whole place is going to be shut down (or maybe the Stone Zoo will be) and then it gets reorganized and they buy some time and maybe put in some cool stuff (like the primate building) and then over time the whole fiscal crisis cycle starts up again.
Is Deval still considering "killing off" some zoo animals?
I recall that Deval Patrick cut the Franklin Park Zoo budget so badly that it was going to result in some animals being killed off. They should save the wildlife before putting up signs downtown.
He wasn't just going to choke
He wasn't just going to choke the budget, resulting in mass echinacea, he was going to ride his Cadillac down there and kill them himself. With his bare hands.
Cripes
Franklin park
I an still trying to figure out how you could get to the Zoo on Beacon St.
Beacon to Franklin Park is actually pretty easy
Left onto Bowker Overpass
Boylston to Riverway
Riverway/J-way/Arborway to Casey Bridge
Casey Bridge to Forest Hills rotary right into the park.
Put another way, follow the Emerald Necklace to the end.
These signs make no sense at
These signs make no sense at all placed where they are - there are so many turns and streets involved between Beacon Hill and Dorchester that people are bound to get lost anyway. They only make sense the closer you get to the zoo. A tourist would get just as lost if there were signs to the Aquarium at the same place - it's much closer, but Boston's streets are so crazy that you're really better off walking from there. Meanwhile, if I'm not mistaken there, are no signs for Storrow Drive or the Esplanade which lie to the just right of Beacon Street a little bit beyond where this sign is posted - how many out-of-towners have missed them because there is no appropriate signage at this post?
ALL the way down Beacon, maybe?
Maybe they're trying to send people down Beacon Street, through Coolidge Corner, then down Harvard Ave to the Jamaicaway. It's not the way I'd send them either, but I do know there are signs all over the place once you get down into Brookline Village. Maybe they figure that will minimize the amount of time people spend in apparently-horrible neighborhoods, by sending them twice as far through lily-white Brookline?
(I live a tenth of a mile from Franklin Park, and it still took me a minute to put that hypothetical route together)
Route 28!
The sign is there becuase of Route 28, which runs on Beacon Street, between Mugar Way and Clarendon Street. Take a left onto Clarendon, a right onto Columbus, and then Columbus becomes Seaver, right onto Blue Hill Avenue to the Zoo. It is all Route 28.
The State has put these signs up in nearly the same exact spots that the brown ZOO signs were placed in the 70's.
That being said, the State is using the 1930's cutting through Boston map process rather than GPS ease for these signs.
But Route 28 is horribly marked!
Most Bostonians probably don't even know there's even a Route 28!
Route 28
it took me years to realize that Route 28 in Somerville, Medford,... up to Lawrence is the 'same' highway as Route 28 on Cape Cod.
If you really want to be confused....
...follow rte 28 south to the Cape, keep going to Chatham, then rte 28 south goes north for a number of miles into Orleans. ;-)
Not to mention what it does in Falmouth
where it makes a complete 180-degree U-turn in less than a mile and a half.
Then of course, there's US 6, where you head east out of Provincetown to go west.
Massachusetts roads - can't beat 'em with a stick
I love taking 128 south to go north to the South Shore Plaza and then returning home on 93 south and 128 north at the same time.
Say that again, 3 times, fast ;-)
That section is truly the classic clusterfark for newcomers to the area. I hear it all the time, laugh, then sympathize, then welcome them to the area.
The "128 south - I-93 north" overlap has been gone
for almost 25 years now. It was formally eliminated in 1989, when US 1 was re-routed off of Storrow Drive et al., and placed on I-95 and I-93 between Dedham and Charlestown, at the request of the MDC. All the Route 128 signs between Canton and Braintree were subsequently removed by early 1991.
Of course, try convincing any Boston traffic reporter of this fact. When it comes to local route designations, they are still firmly stuck in 1972.
$52.00
thats how much it costs to take a family of four to the franklin park zoo. you get there and you walk by one empty exibit after another. the last time i was there they had a lion that appeared to be suffering ocd and a zebra had just died.
the gorillas are incredible and its quite exciting for the kids to see them so close up but for fifty bucks there are plenty of better options. the trailside museum in milton is a fraction of the cost with stories for the kids and live animal exibits. i think the zoo is free the day after thanksgiving which is a good time to check in on little joe and friends.
The zoo's bylaws say it's
The zoo's bylaws say it's supposed to be free.
At some point they started taking optional donations. Then the optional part got dropped.
I remember when the zoo was free
back when the Metropolitan District Commission (remember them?) still ran it. Faced with the choice of no zoo or a zoo you have to pay for, I'll take the latter. A state court probably saw things the same way, if it ever got to that point.
I wondered how many people actually go the Zoo
A quick googling seems to indicate that the Zoo is behind other family destinations:
Franklin Park Zoo: 2009 - 342,313 visitors
Museum of Science: 1.6 million visitors a year
Museum of Fine Arts: "a million" per year
Children's Museum: 558,616 visitors annually (FY 2011)
Stone Zoo: 2009 about 226,000
It is easy to understand
Why the 3 museums get so many more visitors, they have budgets allowing them to advertise through out the country. Franklin Park and Stone Zoo don't have the budget to even advertise locally.
The zoo is not a destination for tourists the way many large zoos like Roger Wiliams Zoo in Providence, Rhode Island is.
There's (at least) another reason
It's raining out: Go to museum - yes, go to zoo - no.
It's snowing out: Go to museum - yes, go to zoo - no.
There's snow on the ground: Go to museum - yes, go to zoo - no.
It's neither raining nor snowing but it's less than 60 degrees out: Go to museum - yes, go to zoo - no.
There's a chance it might rain or snow: Go to museum - yes, go to zoo - no.
despite being underfunded,
despite being underfunded, it's also just a poor location given its proximity to the ghetto. It's not "oh my god, brown people live there!" the zoo is right next to blue hill ave. When you go to the aquarium or museum of science, you can walk around to dtx or the galleria mall or to a restaurant and bring your kids with you. I don't think most white tourist families want to walk around with their kids in Dorchester to go to a run-down carribean restaurant and buy some heroin. That stretch of BHA by the zoo and the surrounding area is one of the more dangerous parts of the city.... you have to drive there and drive back out, so it's a big time investment for a small zoo
And yet, the Bronx Zoo continues to do well
Despite being located in, you know, the Bronx.
Seriously, you think tourists are going to couple a trip to the Museum of Science with a walk over to a shopping mall, or push a stroller from the Aquarium all the way over to DTX?
The zoo has issues, but proximity to Blue Hill Avenue wouldn't be at the top of my list.
Bronx Zoo entrance is 3 blocks from a subway station
which undoubtedly helps draw tourists to visit it.
Really?
I don't know if you've ever taken the 2 or 5 train up that far from Manhattan, but I wouldn't call those lines a "draw."
Yes, I've taken the subway to the Bronx Zoo
or at least to the Bronx botanical garden, and walked from there to the zoo, then took the subway back downtown.
If the Franklin Park Zoo were as close to Forest Hills station as the Bronx Zoo entrance is to the 2/5, it would get many more tourist visits, which would mean more admission revenue, which in time would mean a bigger and better zoo.
We did it too --
...with our 3 kids -- no problems whatsoever, coming or going.
yankee stadium?
i think they draw a few folks to the bronx every summer. not the greatest neighborhood.
Jazzilazzilingabango is clearly a racist asshole. ive been to the zoo dozens of times and never felt a bit unsafe. maybe Jazzilazzilingabango gets nervous because of his skinhead tattoos?
I know, right?
I mean, I frequently drive through that area to meet friends in Dorchester. This one time about 2 weeks ago at night (crazy, right??) on the corner of Washington and Columbia, I was driving through there with my top down on my convertible (crazy, right??) and this car full of young black and hispanic guys pulls up next to me at a light even though it was only a one lane road (crazy, right??). I was clutching my pearls when the guy leans over to me and says...
"Hi. How does your car do on gas mileage?"
The bigger problem with the Franklin Park/Stone Zoo..
..is that they are terrible zoos. I have been to many-a-zoo across our great nation and abroad, and I do not think I have ever visited a zoo as sad or run-down as either the Franklin Park Zoo or the Stone Zoo. Now, I love zoos and I still will go these zoos because they're marginally closer than the lovely Roger Williams Park Zoo, but that doesn't change the fact that they're bad. In sum, I'd say the reason their attendance figures are so poor has more to do with their quality than their location.
I wouldn't go so far as 'terrible'
but you are definitely correct in general. I love zoos, and it would be terrific if we had something on par with Tampa, Columbus, San Diego or the National Zoo.
But there are monkeys, so I will go there.
Edit: Ok, Stone Zoo is terrible. But the Franklin Park is just this side of mediocre.