I throw my computer into various purses (or “bags”, says the semantics police) like it’s a wallet. I’m constantly killing an hour, two hours, between meetings, and if I don’t work during those gaps, I’ll just spend money.
It’s 5pm on Saturday and I’m meeting a friend to see a movie at the AMC Loews “Lincoln Square” at 7:15. The Starbucks behind the Barnes & Noble is gross, so…ah! Alice Tully’s “At 65 Café”, a coffee shop/lunch spot/ bar in the lobby of the new Alice Tully Hall. I walk in and ask the host if there’s a seat with a plug. There is one, and he knows where it is: a mini striped table with two mini chairs in the corner just to the right of the revolving doors. I throw down my coat to save the prime plug spot and go to get a cappuccino (actually, a hot chocolate, only to be informed that all hot chocolate has been “eighty-sixed”, not my words, because people kept sending it back). I then hunt around the lobby for other plugs [investigative reporting], and find that there is actually one other to the left of the revolving doors, but there’s no seat or couch near that one. Not that I’m above sitting on the floor to work if there’s a plug (see the Penn Station entry).
I wonder if this lobby has free internet. It doesn’t especially matter to me, since I have a USB modem ((natch)), but I’m curious. Would you like to join LincolnCenter wireless yada yada, I’m asked when I turn on the computer. Sure, I click, what’ve you got:
Oh dear. Ah well, back to the USB modem so I can blog about how I can’t access the free internet.
I like these casual Lincoln Center hang-outs. I’ve had meetings at the wine bar at Avery Fisher (sometimes during Philharmonic concerts, which is especially nice because there are speakers playing the concert while you drink and snack) and have worked at the coffee spot at the other end of that lobby, too. Being here in the Alice Tully lobby is cool because the building is glass, so you can people-watch when you’re inside and wonder what’s going on in there when you’re outside. I’ve been to five or so concerts since the hall re-opened, and the swarms of people in the lobby before a concert just have to be intriguing from the outside. Love that rubber-necker marketing.
Here’s what it looks like now, which is also quite welcoming:
But I have some questions:
- Why isn’t there music playing? There’s not a concert this afternoon, but…it is a music hall. Even Starbucks-es play music (with nice screens telling us what’s playing, which leads me to…).
- Why aren’t there video screens showing footage of upcoming performances? I’m a captive audience, here for the next two hours: market to me! We are a video-obsessed culture. If there’s something playing on a TV, we can’t not watch it.
- If for reasons I am unable to imagine there cannot be music or video playing in the lobby of a performing arts venue (like, the illy coffee union doesn’t allow it or whatever), why aren’t there even flyers on the tables? Postcards? Triangles? There’s a small display of flyers in front of the box office, but I’m not over there, I’m at the café. Don’t you want to get me to the box office? SELL ME SOMETHING, Alice Tully! I am already inside your doors! You’ve won! Take advantage of me, I’m begging you.
Update 3/22: A fourth question, which I didn’t think of yesterday – when performances are happening, are they broadcast through speakers into the lobby? There are no video screens, so you clearly can’t watch a live performance while having a drink at the bar, but maybe, just maybe, you can listen to one? I will make a point to stop by one night this week to scope out the situation. Watch this space.
Standing in line for those cheap Doctor Atomic tix, I saw the trailer for the Met’s HD broadcasts playing on the flatscreens in their lobby. The clip from their Onegin broadcast made me crave the DVD for weeks afterward, until finally I broke down and whipped out the ol’ Visa.
True story. That stuff works, man.
Totally True. You know who does it well – even though the building-self is weird and Stalinist is the National Theater in England. They also have serious top-down design, and free WiFi. Lincoln Center always seems like one of those places where the whole system was built on IBM’s in the Bronze Age and there is just no way that there will ever be Wireless.
I manage the free wifi network for Lincoln Center, and I can assure you we absolutely do have free wifi!
If you look at the bottom of your third screen shot, you can see a link on that error page telling you to “add an exception” – had you clicked that, and gone through another couple of screens, you would have been online.
When the free wifi launched, Firefox 3 was not around yet. The experience you had is very much tied to Firefox 3 and while I am sorry it affected you, we don’t really have an easy fix for it, as of yet. This Firefox feature has caused a lot of debate, and has even moved some institutions to release their own add-ons for Firefox to address the issue.
I think the best solution in the interim is adding some sort of heads up on the page where you provide your email, to maybe help people avoid the experience you had. I’m going to be talking to our Digital Media group today about doing that.
Our free wifi is designed to work with anything that has a wireless card and an input method – Windows, Mac ,Linux, hand held device, laptop, or smart phone. That task is a lot harder than it sounds, believe it or not, and we are always trying to improve the quality of the experience for users who come back to us with feedback.
Thanks for your feedback. I hope the next time you stop by, this won’t be an issue for you.
Word. Thanks! -AA
@Nico – Our free wifi equipment is new, and state-of-the art, and was donated by Nokia, rather than IBM.
You can give LC wireless a bogus e-mail address, which is certainly what I always do. I love that LC monitors blogs and provides feedback like Bernie has done–good work.
Speaking of tech FAIL, I have to say it drives me absolutely batshit insane that ArtsJournal comments default to newest-first. This is just flat-out indefensibly WRONG. I also happen to know it is correctable, as I’ve successfully badgered a few individual ArtsJournal bloggers to fix it… but it is completely insane that ArtsJournal defaults to reverse comment order. It’s like the person who designed the AJ template has never actually ever read a comments thread on a blog.