Coffee or Cocktail? For African-American Neighborhoods, is the coffee shop the desired ‘third place’? By: Tifinie Capehart
On a lazy Saturday afternoon I found myself channel surfing, landing on the popular T.V. show Friends. Taking a much-needed break from reality T.V., I was again entertained by the sitcom; an actual script with real characters and timed jokes. As I watched I thought about the set of Friends – set in New York City, the characters’ local coffee shop was just as much a character as the people themselves. The coffee shop Central Perk was the characters’ Third Place. The Third Place in the planning world is that place where people gather in addition to their first and second places – home and work. This often translates to your favorite coffee shop, book store, or lounge. As I watched the cast of Friends split their time between their New York apartments and the fictional coffee shop Central Perk, I thought about other ensemble cast shows of the era and remembered that they all had their own third place that played its own ‘part’ in the show. However those places where distinctly different between all white or all black casts…hmmm…. Read more here.
Coffee or Cocktail? For African-American Neighborhoods, is the coffee shop the desired ‘third place’?
On a lazy Saturday afternoon I found myself channel surfing, landing on the popular T.V. show Friends. Taking a much-needed break from reality T.V., I was again entertained by the sitcom; an actual script with real characters and timed jokes. As I watched I thought about the set of Friends – set in New York City, the characters’ local coffee shop was just as much a character as the people themselves. The coffee shop Central Perk was the characters’ Third Place. The Third Place in the planning world is that place where people gather in addition to their first and second places – home and work. This often translates to your favorite coffee shop, book store, or lounge.
As I watched the cast of Friends split their time between their New York apartments and…
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