Updated: According to the Boston Globe the FREE Wifi will be here in the end of May.

Boston Common will be getting some upgrades this Spring thanks to a $1.5 million initiative. Most notably of course is free wifi (built by the same company that delivers free wireless on the Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway) and… a healthy, high-end mobile food truck!

Other facelifts will focus on the area near the Brewer Fountain on Tremont St. (the fountain cost $640k to bring back to life last year) and up to the State House, and include:

– Chessboard and checkerboard rentals
– 30 patio tables with umbrellas & 70 movable chairs
– Outdoor piano man during lunch
– A “Reading Room” stocked with magazines, newspapers, and carts with 400 books

Curious about funding? From the article:

“The current project will be funded by private donations, according to the Friends of the Public Garden, which has already raised almost $1 million. Donors who give $100,000 or more will be honored by having their names inscribed in a granite band surrounding the plaza, Vizza said. Lesser contributions will be recognized with benches and trees.

Next year a second $1 million effort will redefine the edge of the park along Tremont Street, where an expanse of concrete does little to distinguish between the often-clogged sidewalk and the beginning of the Common. An iron fence will be rebuilt and grass and plantings will be restored, enclosing the plaza with greenery.

But first the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority must complete an $8.7 million project adding two new elevators to Park Street Station where it emerges from underground near the fountain.”