The #Yoasis: The New Park Benches In Rittenhouse Square

BY JOEY SWEENEY | Every once in a while, just after dinner, I’ll ride up to Rittenhouse Square to enjoy a whatever in a can, wrapped in a paper bag, sitting on one of the many benches there. To do this is to tap into a tradition of loitering (and, I believe, ticket-able offense) that puts one in a whole line of Philadelphians Who Have Known How To Live. More than any of William Penn’s designated squares here in the “greene country towne,” Rittenhouse is prime time people-watching — it’s our living room, it’s our TV, it’s our radio. On a good day, this park is vastly better than the Internet has ever been.

And it’s probably the only Philly square where, at peak times, you might have to loop around before you find a bench you can call your own for a few moments. To put it mildly, these benches see a lot of (in)action. 

So back in May, when the Friends of Rittenhouse Square oversaw the replacement of all of the benches in the park — save for those made of stone — it definitely turned heads.

There wasn’t anything particularly terrible about any of the in-working-condition older benches, but they were more than 30 years old, and of a gray color that, on the wrong day, might not help your mood. Still, those benches played host to how many arguments, coming-togethers, solo lunches, anxiety attacks, brilliant ideas? We don’t have the technology to count them all. They served well. 

Even so, to take in Rittenhouse today is to see the whole fleet of 165 new benches standing proud and colorful in the noonday sun, 100% at-the-ready for your ass, your thoughts, your conversations. It’s like a whole new park, without what would surely be a massive bummer if humans today were charged with actually building a new park like this. (They wouldn’t. They couldn’t.) To slap the name of a loved one (or maybe favorite newly reborn cityblog) on these babies gives you a sense of how much cash and effort this project has taken — dedications cost $10,000 per bench.

But I’ll tell you this: When you sit down in one, you can feel all ten thousand bones. 

The #Yoasis is a series of posts on this site that seek to inform the reader of places in an increasingly bustling where one may encounter a sense of calm and tranquility. Philadelphia is full of Places We Can’t Understand, and we have written about those, too; as a counterpoint, a #yoasis is place in Philly that the body and spirit understands intuitively, and feels at peace. If you’ve got a #yoasis you feel comfortable sharing with us, please do by emailing us at tips[at]philebrity[dot]com.