As a person who spent most of times growing up in the city, Oldenberg’s article made to reflect what my ‘Third Places’ were. I lived my two thirds of my life(Born & Raised and worked in my mid 20’s to early 30’s) in Seoul, Korea and one third(High School & College, and currently for my MFA’s) in New York City.
During my time before I came to NY, I had no memory or experience of third place. My mother who was very passionate on our education designed my childhood in a way that I only could commute between home and school.
What I remember as my first third place was the pizza place which was located on the way to the subway station in Astoria(Ditmars Blvd stop) during high school. With a group of my friends, it was the place to go after school, do gossiping or sometimes talking about our uncertain future, dreams over a slice of pizza. There were enough spaces for older adults who hangout there watching tv or doing cross puzzle, children who play video games arcade. The place would throw a party once in a while so people in neighborhood come and chat about business, stores, family, etc. As fresh off the boat, my family never actively participated or engaged in conversation with the whole community but with the people at regular grocery places or church. Those places were usually where we get the information on discount deals, tutor jobs, reputation of schools, good plumber, rental and so on. This was the closest feeling of local community that I had and was in the end of 90’s.
Another thought came cross my mind was the use of online community as new space and platform for third place. As technology develops, our culture has changed so much – thanks to internet. We often search, use, create, or join any website or service for our personal interests. The famous services such as Facebook, Instagram, Meetup, Tinder, Reddit, and many others offer people to communicate, to discuss, and to connect each other. Often these online services lead to offline space for people to their needs.
However, the problem rises in present days that older adults have more difficulties to adopt this new technology and gadget compared to younger generations. Also, there are still many people whether they resides in the city or suburban area enjoy physical space for gathering or spending time with locals. As a designer, designing the better online community system would be designing the ‘architecture’ of third place. We already tried in Entrepreneurial Design class for designing community, some succeeded and some failed. We learned that it is not easy to design this community. I think that no matter how fancy or complicated technology is available, it will be no good use if the service is not in use or difficult to use.
Do you think that online third places are more or less divided by ages compared to physical third places?
-michael
I feel like I had the same childhood as you with home and school being my only places. I wonder if that’s simply the lifestyle of today’s modern family. It seems like third places don’t reveal themselves until you are “pushed out” of your first and second places. The third place that you described sounds really vibrant and exciting. I wonder if you would’ve felt the same if you entered with your family instead of friends.