by Lucy Curtis

Pokemon Go has been taking the world by storm since its release earlier this month. Players can interact with a virtual world that closely mirrors the real one in an effort to find and collect small, cartoon monsters known as Pokemon. In addition to catching Pokemon, players can battle for and defend gyms that are found in many prominent spaces with a lot of foot traffic, players can also find supplies at designated Pokestops.

Chestnut Hill happens to be rich in Pokemon Go’s virtual reality. Gyms and Pokestops are plentiful including three pretty popular locations along Germantown Avenue. Kilian's Hardware and Hideaway Music each house a gym, and the Free Library of Chestnut Hill is a Pokestop. Other gyms can be found at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church, Water Tower Recreation Center and Pastorius Park.

Players of all ages can now wander up and down the Avenue battling each other in the gyms or resupplying in the Pokestops. The employees of the businesses where these stops are located aren’t sure why their shops were chosen, with the exception of the library.

Daniel Ryan, supervisor of the Chestnut Hill Library wasn’t aware that the library was a major Pokestop, He wasn’t surprised, however. Ryan said that many libraries are Pokemon gyms and/or Pokestops.

“I think it’s really positive,” Ryan said. “ trying to get people out of the house and to visit different cultural institutions,” he said. Though he knows that many libraries around the country have been made into gyms or Pokestops, he hasn’t been aware of any dramatic increase in visitors due to the Pokestop. This is partly because the library’s patronage has increased recently in response to two other local libraries being temporarily closed for renovations, and partly because it can often be difficult to tell what visitors on their phones are doing.

While Ryan thinks that some of the library’s visitors may very well be players, Sean Reisman of Hideaway Music is pretty sure that “no one’s come specifically for that.”

Reisman, however, said he had “noticed a handful of young kids out front with their moms or dads doing what I think is playing Pokemon on their phones.” He also reported that while the players may not have come into his store, business still might have been improved by the gym being there.

“One of the kids who was doing it, while he was playing his mom was looking at our DVD rack out on our front porch and she ended up buying a handful of them,” Reisman said. “So we’ve had at least one Pokémon related sale that I know of.”

Though the store may benefit from the gym, those who work there have no idea how Hideaway Music was selected.

“We didn’t have anything to do with it,” Reisman said.

Similarly, those at Kilians Hardware aren’t sure how their store became a gym either. Addie Okonski, in addition to working at Kilian's, also happens to play Pokemon Go.

Okonski says she found out the store was a gym “when I opened up my phone in here on my lunch break.” Like the others, Okonski can’t be sure whether those that come into the store are there to play or not.

“I’ve noticed people coming in here with it open on their phone, but I don’t think people have come in specifically to play,” she said.

The gyms and Pokestops may seem to be placed randomly or without thought, but there is a lot of consideration put into these locations. Niantic, the company that created Pokemon Go, was once a part of Google. Before its split from the larger company in 2015, Niantic created another virtual reality game, Ingress, which bears a striking resemblance to Pokemon Go.

Ingress allowed players to travel to different “portals” which corresponded with real world places. The places where these portals were located often had some cultural significance, and still other portals were put in places that were often trafficked. These places were determined through Google’s geo-tagging technology, which could be used to find locations where pictures were most uploaded from, and these frequently visited and photographed places could become portals. Portal locations could also be submitted by users.

According to a recent article on gamesradar.com, the data Niantic gathered about the popularity of Ingress’ various portals helped the company to decide where they should place gyms and other important stops for Pokemon Go.

The locations of these gyms make it easy for people to travel there and connect over a mutual interest. Pokemon Go can be as individual or as team-oriented as a player wants, and gyms offer a meeting place where people who may have nothing but the game in common can play together. The gyms around Chestnut Hill offer another way for the people in this community to appreciate the town and connect with each other.