Wow! What a great location for a standout! About 8 of us tried it out on Friday, May 2, and around 17 of us came out on 5/16. What a blast! LOTS of engagement with motorists!
There’s a full-size sidewalk on the west side, and a narrow sidewalk (kind of like the narrow sidewalk at Mountain Park Rd.) on the east side.
There’s lots and lots of traffic passing by. Southampton Road (Routes 10/202) is heavily traveled northbound and southbound, and the Mass Pike eastbound and westbound is below. Lots of honks and thumbs up and waves…and a few folks flying middle fingers. We smile and wave at them all!
We’ll have letterboards prepared for the lower part of the overpass fencing – the photo shows how that will look to folks passing on the Mass Pike. We’re interacting with motorists on the Mass Pike, and on Southampton Road. We’ve discovered that the magic happens when we smile and wave to people!
Come when you can, and leave when you must. You needn’t be present for the entire 1 1/2 hours.
The address “130 Southampton Road, Westfield” will get you just north of the overpass.
We can’t park in the Southampton Rd breakdown lane. There are vacant business properties north of the bridge, and it seems that parking would be OK there.
It looks like The Wealth Technology Group has vacated their office at 130 Southampton Rd, but the internet says that other businesses are located there, so please be mindful if you decide to park there.
We don’t give the finger to people who give the finger to us, or who say unpleasant things. We smile and wave to them, too.
We may see a counter protester. If so, the best thing to do is just ignore them and spend our time and energy waving to motorists. Let’s keep things 100% non-confrontational in words and body language.
Please take everything you brought away with you, and leave the site totally clean.
If rain is predicted, we’ll cancel. If we cancel, you’ll receive an email notification.
We’ve found that roof rake sections make wonderful flagpoles and banner poles. If you have a roof rake (or 10’-15’ light metal poles or conduit) to contribute, we’ll be happy to take it off your hands!
And, if you have an extra 3′ x 5′ American flag you’re not using, we’d love it if you’d pass it on to us!
photo: Rob Robertson
To submit an event to the calendar, email calendar@swingbluealliance.org