At Pike Place Market, seniors and kids work well together | Hacker News Reader

At Pike Place Market, seniors and kids work well together

seattletimes.com

43 pointswallflower18 comments

>> ... regularly invites older adults to interact with the children.

I'm not convinced about this. I know a couple teachers. They are always getting sick right after the school year begins. Kids are germ factories. Their immune systems are still in a learning mode. I'm not sure that it is the safest thing for elderly people to spend time with large numbers of random children.

Anecdotally, a few years back my city created an "inter-generational playground" in a local park. It did not go well. Old people cannot play the physical games that kids want to play. Sand and grass were removed because it was difficult for older people to walk on. Net result: kids falling onto cement. We need to keep kids more physically active, not restrain them to safely accommodate the presence of elderly people in the playground.

> Their immune systems are still in a learning mode. I'm not sure that it is the safest thing for elderly people to spend time with large numbers of random children.

Their immune systems seem to be in hyperdrive in my experience; a painful, wearying plague that puts me on my back is barely a speed bump for my son...just more sniffles and snot production. I think it's more their hygiene habits are still in a learning mode!

As a parent and spouse of a preschool teacher, though, the kids aren't randomly selected to go to these events. It's just common courtesy to not bring your kid to interact with other kids, visit friends in the hospital, or visit with seniors when they're sick. The trouble comes when parents schedule themselves to be unavailable when their kids are supposed to be at a child care or event that prohibits sick kids and then rationalize/deny the symptoms.

But as far as the seniors go, my infant/toddler/preschooler is perpetually the most popular person in the building when we go to visit Great-Grandma at her assisted living center (assuming there aren't other kids about). People come out of the woodwork when he giggles, and the nurses all say that it's great for them. Carpeted rooms with chairs and toys/activities that need some grown-up help are probably better formats for interaction than a concrete playground, though.

Maybe a playground isn't the ideal venue. A kitchen seems like it would be suitable for both demographics.

Funny, having kids around seniors is the reason that the UK doesn't vaccinate kids for chicken pox by default. The reason being that constant exposure means that the adults are less likely to get shingles.

Pike Place Market is so great and popular, cities should really build more markets like it (including Seattle).

I have a bit of an issue with places which get coöpted and eventually dependent on tourism. Some tourism is good, but places which depend and target tourists don’t serve the local community as well. I hate when things become spectacles.

I’m of two minds. I rarely go there as there are “too many tourists”. Even when I worked within walking distance, I wouldn’t eat lunch there for the same reason. OTOH, were it not for those icky tourists, would Pike Place stay open? I know of similar venues across the country that were on the verge of being torn down until they were turned into tourist-attracting spectacles.

There is that dilemma. Traditional role (serving locals) vs modern role of serving tourists who're looking for something that defines a place (among other reasons). I understand that things change, the economy changes and things modernize. It's not all that different from gentrification. I guess, in a best of both worlds, it would be measured and not so kitsch.

I think things jump the shark when in the manner of "the measurement becomes the goal" So, like if something incidentally attracts some tourists that's great --but once the location targets and begins to specialize with tourists in mind, then it's changed, for the worse, with respect to the local community.

Markets are not places where locals and tourists go for the same reasons. There's little overlap in what a tourist would buy compared to a local: most tourists aren't interested in deals on toilet paper and dish soap, and locals aren't interested in City Name Tchotchkes. Most locals find supermarkets and malls to be far superior places to shop.

That’s mostly a function of only malls and supermarkets really being legal to build though. You couldn’t build something like Pike Place Market today in most communities.

And as far as malls go, those are also dying in large numbers in the States now that their traditional department store anchor tenants are shriveling up.

My rule for pike place is to get there as early as possible to avoid the crowds and I never go there after 11 AM because it gets too crowded.

Agreed: if you arrive at 9 and leave by 11, you practically have the place to yourself.

Seattle has a thriving network of neighborhood farmer's markets, so in principle I think it could work. On the other hand, those markets are one-day-a-week, not permanent installations. Also, far fewer people actually live downtown than used to be the case, so the "local grocery shopping" crowd might be lacking.

So on reflection, no, I doubt it could stay open!

I don't understand... tourism generates loads of local jobs. For example, most people who view a show on Broadway are not native New Yorkers, the reach that Broadway has on NYCs economy and the jobs it generates for locals is huge.

What about spectacles that generate a lot of tax revenue for the rest of the city?

I use to live a few blocks away. While I don't miss the US, I do like Pike Place and downtown Seattle.

SF - Ferry Building

LA - Grand Central Market

NY - Chelsea Market

PHL - Reading Terminal

BOS - Boston Public Market

The problem is, unlike Grand Central and Reading Terminal, a lot of these markets are overpriced and end up being shopping areas only for the rich or tourists.

http://archive.is/ws5GD

Reply on news.ycombinator.com