Design a Better Franklin Park

Franklin Park Zoo: I just spent the last week in San Diego and visited their zoo. I'm not a zoo person, but the San Diego Zoo was pretty spectacular and huge. We saw the giant Pandas and witnessed many animals in very natural settings. The Zoo was absolutely jam packed with people and the entrance fee wasn't cheap. (However, it was worth it in my opinion.) There were TONS of restaurants and bars, plus so much to see and do.

Does anyone think our Franklin Park Zoo could be at least half as good as San Diego?

 
I don't think so because we don't have San Diego's climate and there isn't enough space in Franklin Park, but I do think the park, with the zoo and other attractions, has the potential to one day draw just as many visitors.

Roger Williams is a lot like SD
 
Java King said:
Does anyone think our Franklin Park Zoo could be at least half as good as San Diego?
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I'd like to see the park in general upgraded to San Diego standards. The Zoo and Balboa Park are both templates that are worth studying and adapting to our particular needs. I love Franklin Park, and while it gets some decent amount of use, it could be so much more than it is now. Adding some food and beverage pavilions, upgrading the zoo's physical plant and collections, and perhaps a small, little kid oriented amusement park would help. And by all means, a small train would really make for some added fun. These are the kinds of things that heavily patronized parks have. Franklin Park has room for such things, even if we keep the golf course.
 
HenryAlan said:
I'd like to see the park in general upgraded to San Diego standards. The Zoo and Balboa Park are both templates that are worth studying and adapting to our particular needs. I love Franklin Park, and while it gets some decent amount of use, it could be so much more than it is now. Adding some food and beverage pavilions, upgrading the zoo's physical plant and collections, and perhaps a small, little kid oriented amusement park would help. And by all means, a small train would really make for some added fun. These are the kinds of things that heavily patronized parks have. Franklin Park has room for such things, even if we keep the golf course.
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I'm not sure if I see the need for a overhaul of the Zoo, or even the continued presence of the Zoo as it stands today. The Franklin Park Zoo has always felt a little shabby; it hasn't made any "best of" lists that I can find, when people are in town I never think of recommending the Zoo as a destination in the same way you would in San Diego, and I never really heard of it being a big pull for Bostonians outside of some family/field trips.

Granted, I haven't gone since I was a kid and I have no children of my own. But I can't really recall anyone really itching to go to Franklin Park Zoo. Most of the time I hear it referenced it's in the context of "Why is there a road sign to the Franklin Park Zoo here?"

If anything, I could see an alternative be kind of a New England Nature Center focused on New England fauna. That would keep the Zoo in it's own lane with it's own purpose, and doesn't have to go animal for animal with other Zoos. It could also provide for some reforestation in the area and a smaller Zoo footprint.

Obviously there is enough demand for the Franklin Park Zoo for it to remain the way it is. But I don't think I'd be for any changes that would increase the size of the park, and those changes would probably be needed to add some of the animals and services needed to get to the new standards of a Great Zoo.
 
thepixelnation said:
If anything, I could see an alternative be kind of a New England Nature Center focused on New England fauna. That would keep the Zoo in it's own lane with it's own purpose, and doesn't have to go animal for animal with other Zoos. It could also provide for some reforestation in the area and a smaller Zoo footprint.
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If we're doing that maybe we should use the somehow even shabbier Stone Zoo.
 
TheRatmeister said:
If we're doing that maybe we should use the somehow even shabbier Stone Zoo.
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Lol I honestly had to look up where that was, I can't believe I didn't know that was near Middlesex Fells. Makes sense that Franklin Parks other zoo would be worse. Honestly I think Buttonwood Park Zoo might be the nicer Zoo in the state.

But it would make a lot of sense to put a nature center next to a nature reservation.
 
thepixelnation said:
Lol I honestly had to look up where that was, I can't believe I didn't know that was near Middlesex Fells. Makes sense that Franklin Parks other zoo would be worse. Honestly I think Buttonwood Park Zoo might be the nicer Zoo in the state.

But it would make a lot of sense to put a nature center next to a nature reservation.
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It's been a while but I seem to remember Southwick Zoo being decent too.
 
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