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Taking a flying leap of faith - right into the Charles
By adamg on Sat, 08/20/2016 - 7:19pm
People competed today to see how far they could get with handmade contraptions they propelled off a two-story Red Bull Flugtag tower along the Esplanade today
Tamas K-L shows us one of the entries. Photographynatalia Trouble with Tribbles shows us some of the lines at the event. Mme. Helene Alberti, though, preceded them all by several decades, in Brookline.
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Comments
security theater
It looks like the lines were for "security" checkpoints.
Some day someone from DCR or the State Police will give a logical reason why on summer Friday evenings, hundreds of adults and kids can attend movies at the Hatch Shell and bring whatever they want, in whatever bags they want, with no lines and no rent-a-cops needing to take a peek inside.
And why there are no checkpoints for any of the several charity walks that start at the Hatch Shell.
Yet the Wednesday evening classical concerts, and apparently today's event, have such nonsense checkpoints. (Because if they were handled today as poorly as they were handled for the July 3 rehearsal concert, they are the utter definition of security theater. After that event, I refuse to attend any Hatch Shell event with checkpoints.)
If this was all about security, you'd think that the road right next to the hundreds of people lined up would be closed to traffic. Because it's not as if a vehicle has ever been used in any sort of attack.
They have security
They have security checkpoints for the classical concerts? I was there the other week for the Friday movie - no security at all though it's not a huge event. Maybe it has to do with the number of people they think will attend? I'm never sure which events will have what level of security and info online is not always accurate or available. I am way less interested in going to events there in general these days.
Have you been to Boston in
Have you been to Boston in the past few years? What did you expect? This level of security is hardly a new thing.
Ummm... there were 10,000
Ummm... there were 10,000 people in attendance. There's going to be security for an event like that. Sorry that you were slightly inconvenienced, oh the horrors!
Does there need to be?
I've been to considerably larger events where there was little or no visible security beyond the usual local police, such as Outside the Box on Boston Common last month, or the Lowell Folk Festival.
Or the July 4 weekend
Or the July 4 weekend fireworks and festivities by Long Wharf. Probably attracted thousands too. No nonsense checkpoints.
The issue isn't inconvienience
The issue is that creating security lines is a security threat in itself. As Saul pointed out the line along Storrow Drive is an easy target for a terrorist with a vehicle.
"security"
...was a complete waste of time. The 17 year old kid who wanded me did a lazy pass (missing my entire back waistband area) while I held out my arms and could have had anything in my hands. They were checking every woman's purse, but ignored the shopping bag I was carrying. All this does is hold people up.
Well.
It "seems" like all this does is hold people up.
We live
in a major city that can't handle crowds. Nothing new.
Wonder if security was the point
I wonder if the real point of the security checkpoint was to keep people from bringing in food and non-red-bull beverages. It was such a perfunctory screening and that was the only thing the staff seemed to care about.
Delightfully Terrible
I watched about 1/3 of the contest from across the river, first along Memorial Drive (on the bump-out of the Paul Dudley White Bike Path just past the Longfellow), and then from the Longfellow itself. While we couldn't make out the audio from there, there were pretty good views to be had, and no security at all. The competitors (or at least their crafts) were all awful, flopping almost immediately into the Charles, but hey, it was something to see.
It definitely seems like they could have done a better job with security (and in general with providing viewing for spectators), but it was still a great event.