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Williamsburg High School for Architecture and Design

Innovating Career & Technical Education for New York City’s Future

You are here: Home / The Column / WHSAD Helping Ferry Hawk Fans Find their Way

WHSAD Helping Ferry Hawk Fans Find their Way

January 20, 2023 By Alexander Diaz

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Students working on the signage enjoy some January sunshine at the ballpark.

The year of 2020 set a course for a lot of changes worldwide, affecting all forms of living things for better or worse. The lack of human activity throughout the year led to empty parks, soulless streets, and barren stadiums. These places are homes of human activity and create bonds between the people.

Such was the case for the Staten Island University Hospital Community Park, which prior to the pandemic was Richmond County Bank Ballpark and housed the Staten Island Yankees from 2001-2020. Once the pandemic hit, the establishment remained empty for two years, and over that time period, a lot would need to be updated, such as signage, seating, branding, and ensuring that health codes were up to date. The sudden gear of motion began to prepare for thousands of baseball fans to rejoice in the reopening of the stadium. But such sheer excitement doesn’t come without hard work!

Who? – Stakeholders 

Flynn Ferguson displays the stadium’s site plan

Flynn Ferguson

Senior Director of Business operations for the Ferryhawks 

Just some wayfinding signage to help fans navigate the stadium and the concession stands. And seating areas, to make it a more fun and memorable experience for fans coming to games this spring! 

The goal is to just collaborate with WHSAD students and to work together to better utilize this concourse space. 

Ray Irizarry–General Manager of Facilities and Stadium Operations

What we want from your students is to basically help us with the wayfinding.  When we have fans and visitors come to the stadium, as soon as they walk in, they will get better guidance of the lay of the land, such as where concessions stands and restrooms are. In the upstairs and mezzanines, we have 19 suites. Basically, we want students to help ensure that visitors have a better understanding of where everything is here at the stadium.

What/Why? – Details about the project

Signage provides charm to an area. Instead of using an app on a phone, visitors can simply look up to navigate unfamiliar areas.

The project that WHSAD students are in charge of focuses on wayfinding, which includes signage for concessions, bathrooms, and seating. To make the stadium feel more friendly, the Ferry Hawks want to have clear directions that lead to the stadium, especially to tourists, as they are new to the city and may not have a clear way to travel around.

Towards the end of the group tour, the stakeholder that was mentioned earlier told WHSAD students that there are tunnels for the baseball players that led them in and out of the baseball field. Signage would also be important for these tunnels, but these specific signs shouldn’t be advertised to the thousands of fans as the exposure of the tunnels would certainly lead to privacy concerns. Therefore, students working on the project must consider their audience when designing the signs.

How? – Student Work

Jayson Turpin

From what we saw the stadium needs to be improved on creating clearer and bigger signs. It’s a very big stadium and people need to know where and how to get to places. Also there are many attractions surrounding the stadium, and the original signs that the stadium has doesn’t tell the fans where and how to find those places. So we’ll need to place bigger signs with directions to these certain attractions surrounding the stadium. 

Brianny Estevez 

I’m just hoping that everyone pulls their weight and that we are all able to learn from the experience. Both from a professional standpoint, developing skills and developing stuff that we actually need to know for both the real world and the school. And also personally, being able to hold yourself responsible for when you did or didn’t do something.

Working on guiding fans on both the outside and inside of the stadium brings a variety of variables students must consider.

The basic idea is just to be able to have it done. We want to have successful signage that does what it’s aiming to do. If it looks nice and people like it and it actually becomes a real thing, that would be a whole separate goal. 

Shavar Joyner 

I’m supposed to be working on the exterior, so basically let’s say you want to go to the ferry to the stadium, which you know, is right around the corner. I’m supposed to make signs that lead to the area.

That’s my job. It’s to put signs saying “go this way” “Turn right” Turn Left “Go Straight” “Straight Ahead”. So that’s basically my side. 

As for accomplishments,  I’m hoping to accomplish this project to achieve overall better designs than before. Because I know my designs are pretty “eh”, and I know I can do better. 

Max Mercado

As for the project, I’m helping out designing and seeing what can be improved. And then analyzing HOW it shall be improved, based on the needs of the people .

To anyone who has free time and can join it, you definitely should! The Ferry Hawk signage project is really good! And you get the opportunity to go out on little trips, but that’s just an added bonus.

Jamyang’s photos will help students identify key locations in the stadium where wayfinding is needed.

Jamyang Wong

My role in the wayfinding project is photography/designing/etc. For this project, I hope to gain some work experience and how it is to collaborate as a team, so I get an understanding on how people work together and how people design together.

My end goal is a career, maybe designing, maybe not. I’ll have to see though!

Conclusion 

So as the team gets closer to training for the 2023 season of Ferry Hawks baseball, WHSAD students will hopefully have a better understanding of what signage is and better communication between people and signs. As the project hopefully runs smoothly, so will people’s journey be throughout the stadium.

Filed Under: The Column

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