Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, along with AT&T Chairman and CEO Randall Stephenson, announced Thursday a five-year initiative to bring free Wi-Fi to 26 locations in 20 New York City parks across the boroughs. Today, AT&T Wi-Fi will be up and running in Battery Bosque (a garden in Battery Park), the north-end playground in Joyce Kilmer Park in the Bronx, and around the recreation center at Thomas Jefferson Park in East Harlem.
The other 23 locations will begin to pop up over the summer -- Wi-Fi is even coming to the blighted grass of Brooklyn's McCarren Park, where I personally plan to while the summer away.
The city has been getting increasingly digital of late, adding Wi-Fi to subways, car services and hotspots like Times Square (via AT&T as well). This new parks effort, however, is a part of New York's Road Map for the Digital City, a plan unveiled in May 2011 to make the city more connected. AT&T, meanwhile, gets some badly-needed PR.