Like a pair of new boxer shorts, our starchy white sidewalks downtown will take getting used to. It’s more than where your follow-up foot lands first. Engineers as young as 5 years old are perfecting the risks at their peril.

“Intentionality” gains credence as you watch passersby try to twitter on the move. You’d best make up you mind before you start into a turn. Removal of familiar pavement tilts and tree roots has dampened discourse.

Yet it’s clear the plant trenches will cause more Tidy Friday rescues and a lot of shouting. And the first snow drifts here will require more orange cones, yellow incident scene tape and more shouting while we search around for “Aunt Emma.”

On that score, another worry is loss of the new concrete “elephant box,” which is wrapped like a Christmas present at the market crosswalk. Right near where our putative occupier(s) and picnic table used to hang out. Someone said it’s headed for the dump.

If so, it’s a shame. It’s natural as a soapbox site. Pedestrians still dodge cars there. You can always find a medic getting a latte. It beats using a card table or the nearby chess boards for working-up “occupier” lather.

This box deserves a first chance at becoming Our Very Own Trafalgar Square (“O.V.O.T.S”). Installing a brass handrail wouldn’t hurt.

Look smart now, city hall. Even without the suits and table cloths on the center line, this street is starting to belong – in a few other ways.

R.O. Conoley, Sunrise Drive