No slimy card catalogs to be found
I’m sitting at the New York Public Library right now, the main one in Midtown Manhattan, guarded by a couple of stone lions. It’s about the only place in town that actually has FREE wi-fi. You can’t even find any place that has wi-fi if you purchase something. You buy, you stay, you still pay. Minneapolis, and most of the TC has plenty of coffeeshops where you can buy a coffee, and get free wi-fi for as long as it takes you to drink your coffee (well, longer really, if you can nurse your coffee long enough). Minneapolis is still working on some sort of city-wide wi-fi plan, which is still going through discussions of the pros and cons, it looks like. Manhattan, though, is a pay as you go, by wherever you happen to be. Starbucks, McDonald’s, etc. I suppose the two cities do have a different percentage of laptop users that would make free wi-fi prohibitive.
But the library has it. Unfortunately, to get to the library, I have to walk an hour to the ferry, take a 20 minute ferry ride, walk another half hour to the Long Island Railroad station, take a 90 minute train ride to Penn Station, then a couple of subway stops to the library. (I could probably find a closer branch location, but it sounds more adventurous this way). The library is beautiful, and you could probably fit our fancy new downtown library in the main reading room of this one. Interestingly, the hours of this library are pretty similar to the hours of our central library, as in there aren’t a lot of them during which they’re open. I guess things are tough all over. If I find a closer library with wi-fi, there will be more updates, but this is probably my last trip into the city before the weekend. Now, I’m off to the 5th Ave Apple Store (to drool, sadly, not to buy).
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I totally take the availability of free wi-fi around here for granted. In fact, I expect it, and it pisses me off when a coffee shop doesn’t have it.
I had problems with my home internet connection for a few weeks and it was very much alleviated by the fact that I could walk a couple blocks and get online (and, of course I’d have to have an iced chai, too) if I really needed to take care of something.