lifestyle

Not everybody's happy with what the city's doing

Plaza Einstein, one of the tiniest of Panama City's parks, is known for the Albert Einstein head sculpture that's one of the capital's best-known landmarks. Over the past dozen or so years there have been conflicting, controversial and not particularly expert notions about what to do with the area, and some of the people in the neighborhood are mighty displeased that it's getting change again, to add a little sidewalk, take out some hedges and a low brick wall, and put in some park benches.

The two ficus trees on the downhill side are an old mistake. They obstruct drivers' vision and make the area more dangerous for pedestrians and thos in vehicles alike. Theoretically they might grow to frame a view of the sculpture and get tall enough so that the foiliage would not obstruct the view of the street --- but at that size the roots would be playing havoc with the curbs, gutters and street. The other things that were installed during Juan Carlos Navarro's administration may have kept a few city maintenance people busy, but they really didn't enhance the view of the landmark.

Those who don't like the changes tend to prefer a minimalist park with the Einstein head, grass and a couple of small lights to illuminate the sculpture at night. In some cases they are more annoyed at not being consulted than by the changes themselves.