In the summer of 1996, you couldn't set foot outdoors in West Phildelphia without a team of chipper young women with a wheeled cooler offering you a free Nescafe. They were everywhere. You could net three or four cans during a walk across the Penn campus.
Summer ended and so did the freebies. Cans of iced coffee stared out from store coolers, beckoning to us.
It was one of the best marketing strategies I'd ever seen and I wondered if the state had something similar in mind with the way the parking deck has been free since early last week. Wait until the city jacks up the rates and fines, lure people in with free access and then slam the gates down. Right?
Alas, nothing so dramatic. According an administrative assistant at the Department of Buildings and General Services Property Management section, the gates are not working properly and will remain open while the deck waits on a service call, which could take some time.
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