June 21, 2006
New Newsstands are So So Shiny, But Limiting
The New Yorker has a Talk of the Town piece about the new street furniture the city hopes to roll out over the next few years. Last fall, the city signed a billion dollar deal with Cemusa for new newsstands, bus shelters and public toilets, and the designs are definitely sleek and futuristic. Which raises the New Yorker's question.
But what of the newsstands? Like a man’s beloved—and ripped, and stained—football-watching chair, the corner newsstand as we know it, stuffed to the point of bursting, and jerry-rigged with duct tape, milk crates, Igloo coolers, bungee cords, and dangling light bulbs, has never failed to provide homey comfort, whether on Sunday afternoon (you got your Post and your Doritos) or Monday morning (your Journal, Diet Coke, and some eyedrops). By comparison, the new, standardized fleet, built of modular stainless steel and aluminum—“so you won’t see the institutional browns and dark greens that you tend to see now,” [new street furniture designer Duncan] Jackson said—are straight from Ikea.
Ikea - ouch! Sleek and stainless steel could be awesome in the kitchen, but Gothamist thinks we prefer the overloaded newsstand. One newsstand vender lamented the new designs because there's less room for candy and no ability to hang magazines from binder clips. Hear that magazine publishers - there's limited space for your magazines to be displayed. No more rogues' gallery of celebrity breakups news, no more excessive Maxim/FHM pinups...wait, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how the newsstands are maintained or modified given the market demand (cardboard box extension, anyone?).
Photograph at top from Susan NYC; new Cemusa newsstand photograph from the Department of Transportation
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I actually prefer the newer designs. I prefer them for two reasons:
A- New doesn't necessarily mean bad as the article seems to imply. Just because something is "sleek and futuristic" doesn't mean that it doesn't address the functions needed in the kiosk. From what I've seen, the designers actually addressed issues such as the ability to actualy clean the structure effectively and created a space that is able to be used by the differently-abled.
B- The old kiosks are eyesores and are often times so poorly taken care of that the original details are virtually obscured and actually are safety hazards. If you've ever had a pair of pants ruined because of poor care of the kiosk or seen one with the door fall open then you know what I mean.
More bad modern design where form does not seem to follow function.
agreed...a bit sterile to me. hopefully the vendor will clutter them up and make them more homey.
Of all the New York things to be nostalgic for...newsstands? Come on.
Good ole American Immigrant inginuity will have these things looking ccompletely diffferent within a month. Of course they will probably be fined, but making more money will win out.
Look OK, just chilly as hell- from an aesthetic and weather point of view. Is there even a window for the vendor so he or she doesn't freeze to death in the middle of the winter? I cannot see one.
re fhm and others, i think they should be banned from public display. i don't want to look at that stuff, and i certainly wouldn't want my kid to see it either.
That's horrible. What's happening to our once-unique, great city. Full of character and quirkiness. Homegenization to look like Minneapolis or some other souless metroburb, is what. I hope gangs of marauding youths (from acorss the water of course--no youths can afford to live here) run down in packs and tear these eyesores down. That, or the market suddenly crashes. All hail the market crash to end this madness.