At some point this year I realized I had strong, specific opinions about park benches — not benches in general, but individual, particular benches I’ve actually sat on, each with its own personality. So I built a rating system and started keeping track. This got out of hand quickly. Here is the full system, and the fifty benches it produced.
The Rating System
Every bench gets scored on four categories, one point each, for a total out of 4:
- Shade (0–1): Does it have real shade during peak sun hours, or the useless kind that moves away from you by 2 p.m.?
- View (0–1): Is there something worth looking at, or are you just facing a parking lot?
- Structural Integrity (0–1): Does it wobble, splinter, or have a mystery damp patch?
- Solitude Potential (0–1): Can you actually sit here without three joggers and a stroller passing through your personal space every ninety seconds?
Plus a bonus Vibe Note, because some benches earn a 2/4 on paper and still feel like a 4 in practice.
The Fifty
1. The one by the duck pond — 4/4. Shade, view, sturdy, and ducks that mostly ignore you. The platonic ideal. 2. Outside the library, facing the parking lot — 1/4. Functional. Bleak. A bench in name only. 3. Under the big oak on the east trail — 4/4. Best shade in the entire park system, no notes. 4. The wobbly one near the tennis courts — 2/4. Great people-watching, structurally concerning. 5. Behind the community center — 3/4. Underrated. Quiet, shaded, slightly damp seat you learn to avoid. 6. The one with the plaque nobody reads — 3/4. Dedicated to someone in 1987. Solid bench. Good energy. 7. By the playground — 1/4. No solitude whatsoever, but useful if you’re supervising children, which I was not. 8. The overlook bench on the hill — 4/4. Best view in the city. Worth the climb. 9. Next to the dog park fence — 2/4. Entertaining, but you will get barked at, guaranteed. 10. The metal one that’s freezing in October — 1/4. Aesthetically fine. Physically a war crime. 11. Riverside, near the old bridge — 4/4. Underused. Should be more popular than it is. 12. Outside the ice cream shop — 3/4. No shade, but the ambient joy nearby raises the vibe score significantly. 13. The splintery one by the tennis courts, part two — 0/4. Somehow worse than bench 4. Avoid. 14. Facing the sunset over the parking structure — 3/4. Bad view specifics, great view timing. 15. The one that’s always wet for no visible reason — 0/4. A genuine mystery. Do not sit here. 16. Near the community garden — 4/4. Shaded, quiet, smells like tomatoes. Excellent. 17. The bus stop bench that isn’t really for the park but I count it anyway — 1/4. Purely functional. 18. Under the cherry trees, spring only — 4/4 seasonally, 2/4 the rest of the year. Petals everywhere in April. 19. The one near the skate park — 2/4. Loud, but a good loud. Entertaining chaos. 20. Hidden bench behind the maintenance shed — 3/4. Best solitude in the entire ranking. Nobody knows it’s there. 21. Facing directly into the sun at 4 p.m. — 1/4. Whoever installed this bench was not thinking clearly. 22. The double bench near the fountain — 3/4. Slightly too public, but the fountain noise is genuinely calming. 23. By the tennis court snack machine — 2/4. Convenient. Not peaceful. Good in a pinch. 24. The stone one that’s always cold, even in summer — 2/4. Refreshing in July, unbearable in October. 25. Next to the war memorial — 3/4. Solemn, quiet, slightly heavy to sit near, but well-kept. 26. The bench with the loose slat that catches your jacket — 1/4. Fine until it isn’t. 27. Overlooking the baseball field — 3/4. Great if a game’s happening, mediocre otherwise. 28. The one tucked behind the rose garden — 4/4. Smells incredible. Shaded by a trellis. A hidden gem. 29. By the parking lot entrance — 0/4. Why does this bench exist. Who is this for. 30. The bench with a squirrel that has clearly claimed it — 2/4. You are a guest here, not the owner. 31. Facing the walking path loop — 3/4. Good for people-watching without being too exposed yourself. 32. The one near the public restrooms — 1/4. Location, location, location, and none of it good. 33. Under the willow tree — 4/4. Genuinely magical. The willow does all the work. 34. The bench that’s slightly too short to lean back on — 2/4. An ergonomic betrayal, otherwise fine. 35. By the community pool fence — 2/4. Loud kids, chlorine smell, undeniably nostalgic. 36. The isolated one at the far end of the trail — 4/4. A twenty-minute walk for total peace. Worth it. 37. Facing a wall, for reasons I cannot explain — 0/4. A bench with no purpose. A monument to bad planning. 38. The one repainted a strange shade of green — 3/4. Ugly color, surprisingly comfortable. 39. Near the frisbee golf course — 2/4. Occupational hazard: getting hit by a disc. Otherwise fine. 40. Shaded but facing a busy road — 2/4. Good shade completely undone by traffic noise. 41. The bench donated “in loving memory,” slightly crooked — 3/4. Character over craftsmanship. 42. By the seasonal ice rink — 3/4. Great in winter, oddly sad-looking the rest of the year. 43. The one every dog seems to sniff intensely — 2/4. Comfortable, but you’ll wonder why. 44. Overlooking the community garden compost area — 1/4. Peaceful in theory, questionable in practice. 45. The bench with the best acoustics for the nearby fountain — 4/4. Accidentally perfect. Nobody designed this on purpose. 46. Facing directly into a hedge — 0/4. No view, no purpose, structurally fine but existentially confusing. 47. The one near the little free library box — 3/4. Great for a quick read, mild foot traffic. 48. Tucked between two large rocks on the north trail — 4/4. Feels secret. Probably isn’t. Doesn’t matter. 49. The bench with a slightly too-narrow seat — 1/4. Fine for one person, a negotiation for two. 50. Back at the duck pond, but the other side — 3/4. Almost as good as bench 1, worse angle on the water.
Final Standings and What I Learned
Averaging it all out, the duck pond area produced the two best benches in the entire survey, and the parking lot areas produced, without exception, the worst. Shade and solitude turned out to be far better predictors of a good bench than anything about the bench’s actual construction — some of the highest-scoring benches were structurally mediocre, propped up entirely by a good tree and a quiet location.
The real finding, if there is one, is that a bench is never really rated on the bench itself. It’s rated on everything around it — what you can see, what you can hear, and whether anyone’s going to interrupt you in the next five minutes. The wood and the bolts are almost beside the point.
How to build a rating system that is actually repeatable
The bench project works because it turns a fuzzy preference into a small rubric. The exact categories are subjective, but using the same categories repeatedly makes comparisons more meaningful than changing the criteria every time a favorite bench appears.
What this can — and cannot — show
A four-point score still reflects one person, one visit, one weather condition, and one set of needs. Accessibility, shade, noise, safety, maintenance, crowding, and comfort can matter differently to different people. A ranking is therefore a record of the scoring method and the moment, not an objective map of the “best” public space.
Try the exercise yourself
- Choose three to five criteria before you start and define what earns a point in each one.
- Keep the scoring scale small enough that you can apply it consistently without inventing tiny distinctions.
- Record the date and conditions when the environment can change the score, such as weather, crowding, or construction.
- When two items tie, describe the trade-off instead of adding an arbitrary decimal just to force an order.
- After 10 ratings, review the rubric once. If you change it, rescore earlier entries or clearly mark that the method changed.
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