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True Tales From Parks and Recreation - Banners of Destruction


Note: I used to work for a park slowly in continued development in Manhattan that is five miles along the waterfront of the Hudson River. As a Public Programs Coordinator, yours truly handled anything public related in regards to permitting (athletic facilities, film shoots, photo shoots, weddings, and other small gatherings), and of course, dealing with any questions or inquiries from the public. The following series will present stories, e-mails, phone calls, conversations, interactions, and sights I've seen from the people of New York City in regards to a public park. And yes, these are all real! And are all true!

Welcome to another little snippet of Parks and Recreation.

The craziness that is Parks and Recreation unfortunately does not only lend itself to the dealings with the public. As already seen by the hit show on NBC obviously named, Parks and Recreation, the employees and happenings inside the offices are just as weird, just as cooky, and just as head scratching.

Our department met once a week to discuss the several things that were on our agendas which ranged from events, complaints, repairs, or marketing and advertising strategies. As usual with any business meeting that gets the creative juices going, we sometimes get off topic from the topics we wanted to attend address. At this meeting, the topic of the newly built lunch room for employees and Park Enforcement officers came up.

One person decided to bring up possible ways to use our old banners to decorate but also raise morale in the lunch room. Though it sounded like an awesome idea, another person (I'm keeping their titles anonymous for obvious reasons) had serious concerns that the walls in the room would not be able to sustain the banners. And this argument and concern went on for five to ten minutes, which any professional would know, is an eternity just sitting there around a conference table with no where to go. 

So yes, just in case your eyebrows are arched in curiosity as much as mine were during that squabble, there was serious concern that multiple banners hung on concrete walls would somehow cause so much destruction, that the entire office, built on a pier) would crash into the Hudson River. Far fetched? Absolutely, but that's Parks and Recreation for you.

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