‘Hospitable’ Replacements Removed
by Jeremy Morrison
Anyone looking to take a load off in MLK, Jr. Plaza on Palafox may have noticed a shifting landscape. For so long, the benches were gone. Now they’re back, but what about that ‘hospitable’ option that made a brief appearance?
Local homeless advocate Michael Kimberl is pretty familiar with the benches in Martin Luther King, Jr. Plaza, where he has often helped provide food to the homeless community.
“Every time I drove by, there seemed to be somebody sitting on those benches,” Kimberl recalled recently.
The local advocate can also recall when the city of Pensacola removed the benches — “they had been gone for two years” — and was surprised to see them replaced recently as he and his attorney were leaving a downtown meeting concerning a legal issue about the advocate allegedly breaking the lock on a Downtown Improvement Board-controlled portable toilet during a Food Not Bombs meal distribution at MLK Plaza.
“When we and my attorney were leaving, we drove by and were like, ‘what the heck is that?’” Kimberl said.
After a lengthy absence, the plaza’s benches returned shortly after a third party provided new benches to the park.
“If I remember correctly, it was the ‘Friends of Hospitable Architecture,’” Kimberl relayed.
The simple wooden benches featured a plaque: A GOOD BENCH, DONATED TO MLK PLAZA BY THE FRIENDS OF HOSPITABLE ARCHITECTURE.
“Roughly three and a half weeks they lasted,” Kimberl noted.
The reference to ‘hospitable’ was likely a nod to the fact that the wooden benches were sans division bar, thus allowing a person to stretch out or lay down on the structure. The benches returned to the park by the city feature a separation bar.
“They are the benches that have the bar in the middle,” Kimberl said. “So, now we’re back to hostile architecture, but hostile architecture is better than no architecture.”
According to Pensacola Public Information Officer Kaycee Lagarde, the city replaced the benches at MLK following maintenance.
“The City of Pensacola returned several city-owned benches to MLK Plaza earlier this week after completing some needed refurbishment/repairs to the benches,” Lagarde explained to Inweekly in a Sept. 9 email. “At that time, we also removed some other benches placed there by the Friends of Hospitable Architecture organization.”
Lagarde explained that the city removed the FHA benches for safety reasons: “While we appreciate the gesture, the organization placed the benches there without coordination with the city, so we had to remove them for safety reasons. Since the city did not place these benches in MLK Plaza, we are not able to ensure they are safe for public use.”
“The benches from Friends of Hospitable Architecture are being safely stored by the City of Pensacola Parks and Recreation,” Lagarde added, “and the organization is welcome to contact the city to retrieve their benches.”
