The saga of public restrooms here in what we like to think of as the first world stumbled forward another halting step with the city finally — a term deployed with much skepticism — awarding a contract to subsidiary of a Spanish conglomerate that has managed to build seven toilets in Rio in three years. One of the qualifications must have been expertise with New York development and construction.
There don’t seem to be any details about the important stuff: where the 20 will go. Will there be token placements in the outer boroughs, reducing the Manhattan total (of course we expect them all to be in Manhattan) to 16? Will hipsters be mad or glad at emplacements on Bedford or Clinton? Will the UES get all NIMBY, worried about undesirables?
Will Community Boards have a say, or veto, about the locations? This is a surefire recipe for disaster; why would a someone who has ready access to their own bathoom at home support a public restroom that will — cue paranoid suburban protectionism here — attract drug addicts, prostitutes, or worse, Sex and the City tour patrons? Will there be a facility for voting up locations? And is 20 all we get? If you are counting, that’s one per every 150,000 people (daytime population). If so, you’d better get in line now. Should 20 minutes be allotted to each client, you won’t get your turn for something like 5 years, give or take a few months.
And what will they look like? One of the upside qualities touted in the Times coverage is that diversity of the designs evidenced in the Rio contract. However, one of the stated goals of the “street furniture” contract (aside from driving the New York Press out of business, if you believe their paranoia, even though that seems to have happened no thanks to the city) was unification of designs, particularly newspaper boxes and newsstands.
Given the that Parks Departments has crossed over like every totalitarian landmarks group, mandating everything be enrobed in green-painted wrought iron filigree, it’s unlikely we’ll see anything as inspired as the ARO recruiting station in Times Square.
But as long as Starbucks grow like weeds around Manhattan, the whole restroom debate will be largely symbolic. One of the other major elements of this contract — paper boxes and newsstands — raise some sticky issues. The Press wrapped their concerns about circulation in a freedom of the press argument, but they have a point. As a matter of space (though not expense) the public sphere is a blank slate (well, as blank as any particular corner of daisy chained plastic distro boxes get). It’s not clear how access will be handled going forward. Can papers buy exclusivity in certain locations? If it takes these folks three years to build an outhouse, what happens in areas where they haven’t installed new boxes? And, like the restrooms, who will adjudicate quantity and location? It seems impossible that they have a strategy that will result in the same level of availability as currently (which, if you are a tree hugger, maybe isn’t a bad thing).
Will similar issues arise at the newsstands? Though they typically don’t have the broadest array of inventory, they are often very responsive to the vagaries of local population (the range of fashion publications to the found along Seventh Avenue in the 30’s is pretty impressive). Assuming that any big company ethos brings big company blandness, will this be the advent of the Clear Channeling of newsstands? It seems highly unlikely that any contract will mandate what is sold where, so it the city basically packaging a monopoly on newspaper and magazine distribution? If so, a billion dollars over twenty years seems awfully small (even if it’s compared to the forty three cents the city will make from the Atlantic Railyards deal).
Given all the daily slights and challenges perambulating the city present, is this really Job One? I didn’t see anything in the various write ups to indicate that somehow matching newsstands will stem the plague of overflowing trashcans or change the impenetrable pickup schedule that seems to mandate that you can’t walk a block at night (and hell, most days) without shuddering past a mountain of garbage sure to release a rodent in your path any second.
The newsstands don’t really seem that broken. Sure, some of them could be cleaned up a bit, but perhaps some intermediary steps could be taken to test the resolution of that problem before we hand over control of a big chuck of our streetscape to a company that still has to complete a major contract?
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You should have gone before you left home.
The saga of public restrooms here in what we like to think of as the first world stumbled forward another halting step with the city finally — a term deployed with much skepticism — awarding a contract to subsidiary of a Spanish conglomerate that has managed to build seven toilets in Rio in three years. One of the qualifications must have been expertise with New York development and construction.
There don’t seem to be any details about the important stuff: where the 20 will go. Will there be token placements in the outer boroughs, reducing the Manhattan total (of course we expect them all to be in Manhattan) to 16? Will hipsters be mad or glad at emplacements on Bedford or Clinton? Will the UES get all NIMBY, worried about undesirables? Will Community Boards have a say, or veto, about the locations? This is a surefire recipe for disaster; why would a someone who has ready access to their own bathoom at home support a public restroom that will — cue paranoid suburban protectionism here — attract drug addicts, prostitutes, or worse, Sex and the City tour patrons? Will there be a facility for voting up locations? And is 20 all we get? If you are counting, that’s one per every 150,000 people (daytime population). If so, you’d better get in line now. Should 20 minutes be allotted to each client, you won’t get your turn for something like 5 years, give or take a few months. And what will they look like? One of the upside qualities touted in the Times coverage is that diversity of the designs evidenced in the Rio contract. However, one of the stated goals of the “street furniture” contract (aside from driving the New York Press out of business, if you believe their paranoia, even though that seems to have happened no thanks to the city) was unification of designs, particularly newspaper boxes and newsstands. Given the that Parks Departments has crossed over like every totalitarian landmarks group, mandating everything be enrobed in green-painted wrought iron filigree, it’s unlikely we’ll see anything as inspired as the ARO recruiting station in Times Square. But as long as Starbucks grow like weeds around Manhattan, the whole restroom debate will be largely symbolic. One of the other major elements of this contract — paper boxes and newsstands — raise some sticky issues. The Press wrapped their concerns about circulation in a freedom of the press argument, but they have a point. As a matter of space (though not expense) the public sphere is a blank slate (well, as blank as any particular corner of daisy chained plastic distro boxes get). It’s not clear how access will be handled going forward. Can papers buy exclusivity in certain locations? If it takes these folks three years to build an outhouse, what happens in areas where they haven’t installed new boxes? And, like the restrooms, who will adjudicate quantity and location? It seems impossible that they have a strategy that will result in the same level of availability as currently (which, if you are a tree hugger, maybe isn’t a bad thing). Will similar issues arise at the newsstands? Though they typically don’t have the broadest array of inventory, they are often very responsive to the vagaries of local population (the range of fashion publications to the found along Seventh Avenue in the 30’s is pretty impressive). Assuming that any big company ethos brings big company blandness, will this be the advent of the Clear Channeling of newsstands? It seems highly unlikely that any contract will mandate what is sold where, so it the city basically packaging a monopoly on newspaper and magazine distribution? If so, a billion dollars over twenty years seems awfully small (even if it’s compared to the forty three cents the city will make from the Atlantic Railyards deal). Given all the daily slights and challenges perambulating the city present, is this really Job One? I didn’t see anything in the various write ups to indicate that somehow matching newsstands will stem the plague of overflowing trashcans or change the impenetrable pickup schedule that seems to mandate that you can’t walk a block at night (and hell, most days) without shuddering past a mountain of garbage sure to release a rodent in your path any second. The newsstands don’t really seem that broken. Sure, some of them could be cleaned up a bit, but perhaps some intermediary steps could be taken to test the resolution of that problem before we hand over control of a big chuck of our streetscape to a company that still has to complete a major contract?