GVSHP Gets Serious About Illegal Signage at Greenwich and 12th Street
We just got an email from Andrew Berman at the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation regarding the illegal Equinox signage at Greenwich Ave. & 12th street. As it explains very thoroughly what has been done to remove the illegal signage, I will copy it below verbatim. Amongst other things the GVSHP polices advertising and signage infractions within their community and has a great track record for making things happen. It seems from this email that the ball is rolling and that this illegal sign will likely come down quickly.
Dear friend,
I wanted to let you know that we have just been informed that the Department of Buildings today issued 13 violations to Equinox for their billboards at Greenwich Avenue and 12th Street. The Landmarks Preservation Commission has also issued them a warning letter, which can be found at PDF.
Thank you for all your help with this matter. We will continue to keep you informed on our progress in pursuing these billboards' removal.
What is amazing to me is that a single sign like this can cause such outrage because of its high profile nature while an entire company like Contest Promotions or NPA can go completely unaffected, operating over 500 illegal signs around the city of which I have mapped over 180. Not only have we mapped these locations but we have given them to the GVSHP and the DOB. On top of this we have gathered in mass on two occasions to take back these spaces for public use and 9 of us have been arrested. The result of all this has been a resounding quiet to say the least, although we have had a lot of fun.
At first glance it would seem that the public is less concerned about the smaller less obtrusive signage pictured above and run illegally by NPA. Rather I think we have become so accustomed to these smaller signs that we cannot imagine they are actually illegal. In fact I think unless something glares so brightly that you cannot not notice it, most of us spend little time assessing the quality of our city streets and realizing that we have some level of control over those spaces. This knowledge is not only fantastic on the individual level, but collectively if we question and take responsibility for our public spaces we become very invested in our neighborhoods and communities.
Unsanctioned Gym Billboard Sparks Outrage In West Village
It's great to see people up in arms about commercial signage appropriating public spaces but this one, despite not being properly permitted, is still a first party sign. I would hope that this outrage will continue as we see other illegal signs enter our neighborhoods on illegal walls and rolldown gates toting signage that has nothing to do with the business or building it is adhered to.
VIA Gothamist We've spent a good chunk of time writing about illegal advertisements, but few have been as large — or caused as much fury — as this billboard in the West Village. Ever since the Equinox Health Club wrapped its Greenwich Avenue building with seemingly illegal ads, preservationists have been up in arms, according to Curbed. [MORE]
Today American Eagle Outfitters announced its plan to put your face on a 25 story digital billboard in Times Square, provided you buy something of course. Especially because this is in Times Square, I'm not all that opposed to this marketing ploy. After all it does present residents (tourists) with an opportunity to imagine a world where their faces and ideas become a part of the visual landscape, an alternative to outdoor advertising we at PublicAdCampaign champion.
I couldn't help but think of JR's work in Brazil as a similar and yet incomparably different version of this recent American Eagle stunt. JR is known for going into communities and photographing the residents, blowing those images up to incredible dimensions and then applying them to the city structure.
Both projects present the public back to itself but there are many differences between the two. The monetary incentives, nature of the subjects, location of project, are three of the more obvious, but I think there is one difference that is less noticeable, and yet incredibly important. This is the relationships that the people who interact with these two different projects develop. The American Eagle project leaves the participant and the producer separate, isolated and disjointed. You get 15 seconds of fame, American Eagle capitalizes on all the friends you have that will talk about American Eagle through your appearance. There is no lasting relationship developed in an exchange where the two parties intend to take something away from the interaction.
JR's work is exactly the opposite. No one takes anything concrete away from the interactions between artist and subject in JR's large scale projects except a lasting connection and real relationship. The images, taken by JR, are returned to the community in the form of artwork. The initial gift by the subject, allowing themselves to be pictured by the artist, is returned to the subject as a lasting image of themselves in their community which announces their humanity and presence in the world. An exchange of this nature actually builds, gives life to new community.
The difference between the two then is not so much monetary, but in their ability to alter the community positively by causing real social interaction which turns into lasting relationships. You can be sure both JR, and the lives of his subjects were significantly altered by these projects and that a continued mutual respect will pervade any further interactions. You can also be sure American Eagle, and the consumers using their purchase to buy time on a big screen have developed nothing, and in fact stolen from each other for personal gain. Each participant in this case moving away from the point of interaction with no sense of community and no lasting attachment to one another. Such is the difference between commercial interactions and community interactions in a public environment.
Superior Court Judge Terry Green ruled today that the lawsuit settlement giving Clear Channel and CBS Outdoor the right to convert 840 conventional billboards to digital violated the law by exempting those conversions from any zoning regulations or requirements for notice and public hearings. [More Here]
The Greenwich Village Society For Historical Preservation
A good friend and reader of PublicAdCampaign recently made me aware of The Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation which has been taking action against illegal signage with much recent success. Their Mission states...
The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation was founded in 1980 to preserve the architectural heritage and cultural history of Greenwich Village, the East Village, and NoHo. GVSHP is a leader in protecting the sense of place and human scale that define the Village’s unique community.
Our programs include: Educational outreach in the form of public lectures, tours, exhibitions, and publications; A school program that teaches children about Greenwich Village history and architecture; Preservation leadership on such issues as preservation of the South Village; Preservation projects that promote an understanding of the Village’s historic importance, such as the Greenwich Village Preservation Archive and Oral History Project; Consultation services on a wide variety of preservation issues, with GVSHP serving the community as historian, educator, archival resource, and technical consultant.
I have contacted them in hopes our extensive maps of illegal NPA signage might be of use to them in their fight to retain neighborhood identity and hold off the encroachment of illegal signage and unwanted commercial messages.
I just received an email from two readers, Luna Park and Allan Molho. Both directed me to the below image on amolho4's Flikr page. This illegal NPA City Outdoor advertisement must have been recently put in place as it is sitting directly on top of an incredible piece by Conor Harrington. (also pictured) I am so upset about this I am not exactly sure how to respond. Not only does NPA operate over 500 illegal street level billboards in the city but they are covering the little public art we have in this city with their filth. The audaciousness and irreverence of NPA has made me angry before. Something will be done.
Image Courtesy of Sabeth718 13th street and Washington (before)
Image Courtesy of Allan Molho 13th street and Washington (after)
I met up with NY Ghost for the first time last Saturday. We walked around putting up posters for about 3 hours before we went our separate ways. These days I don't normally have a partner so it was nice for both of us to have a lookout and company. Our conversation mostly circled outdoor advertising and the city as a whole. It was wonderful to entertain a relationship built on a shared public experience. I highly suggest it.
This image is from a series I am starting called "National Bestseller". I use the every page from a popular title to make a single sheet that fills a phonebooth advertisement. Because the materials are so cheap, this project is about numbers. For every page you see that has red in it, there are 9 others out there that were put up without the red addition. Go out and get learned people!
This image was produced by NY Ghost and was placed at 14th street and 1st avenue on the NWC. It was a brazen spot considering there were police officers directly across the street but nonetheless proved accessible. This is the first image of NY Ghost's that really cathces my eye and I hope he keeps up the good work.
Abandoned 7th Ave. building bane of neighbors’ block
A recent article in Chelsea Now bemoans the dilapidated building at 210 7th avenue. Since the building went vacant in 2002, complaints have included the illegal advertising that has adorned the building for as long as I can remember. Reporter Sheila McClear writes "But even the ads, the only bright spot on the otherwise derelict property, may be illegal." A simple jaunt to the Department of Buildings website clearly shows this address has no permits which would allow outdoor advertising. In fact the advertising itself might be the very thing that is keeping this building derelict. In the article the Deborah Fenker, speaking of the landlord, is quoted as saying, 'He told me that he got good money for having those ads up in the windows,'. If this building wasn't pulling in revenue from advertising there is a strong chance the landlord would take the initiative to rent the ground floor, which would then require the other maintenance that is drawing so many complaints from local residents.
This makes me think of the conversation I had with the CEO of InWindow, Steve Birnhak. One of his justifications for operating his illegal advertising business was that his ads hide unsightly closed storefront conditions. In this way he suggested his advertisements actually helped fight of the broken window theory from coming to fruition, preventing neighborhoods from slipping into states of decline. It would seem from this article and the conditions at 210 7th avenue, that these streetscape ads might also make it easier for landlords to neglect their properties, actually facilitating neighborhood decline.
All are welcome to express themselves in the box below
This is an interesting way for private landlords and shop owners to allow, and at the same time control, graffiti and public use of our shared public walls. Not only does a gesture like this garner respect from local artists for the wall they are painting and thus the individual behind it, but it creates an environment where public use of public space is acceptable despite local laws prohibiting this kind of activity.
Gama-Go's Greg Long just snapped this photo of a roll-up door in San Francisco. Click the image to see it larger. Here's what's written on the door above and below the graffiti:
"All are welcome to express themselves in the box below."
"Painting within the above box is hereby expressly permitted and shall not be considered "graffiti" in accordance with article #23 of the San Francisco Municipal Code."
On the first page of Graffiti Lives-Beyond the Tag in New York's Urban Underground, Gregory Snyder articulates why I think public interaction with the visual environment is such an important public health issue. It not only engages those individuals who physically alter the space they live in, but also those who consume that alteration (happily or not), creating a participatory interaction in public space. This is by no means a small achievement and one of the achievements of a properly functioning city and residency.
He writes, "I lived in New York for three years, but suddenly I was in an entirely different city; it felt like the walls around me had burst to life. I began to explore my city looking at graffiti, and this gave me a greater appreciation of the diversity of its architecture and it's people. I learned to take photographs, improved my penmanship, and got into lots of fascinating conversations."
Somewhat related, later in the book he writes, "Graffiti writing incites stories, and the desire to write graffiti in part comes from the need to be part of the story." "Stories are an essential part of city life, and the way that graffiti animates spaces is an enjoyable, fascinating aspect of the urban experience. French architecture critic Michele de Certeau agrees with this notion, arguing that graffiti is in line with a collection of urban activities in which we make our own stories and produce the memories that make space habitable. This lived space is the space of everyday experience, in contrast to the planned, ordered city that seeks to impose a metanarrative on space. This may be more than just enjoyement; the author of the reknowned Marxist text The Production of Space, Henri Lefebvre, believes that transforming space in this fashion is potentialy radical, and that the reevaluation of space is as critical to social change as economic and political restructuring."
The Most Important Thing You Will Read About PosterBoy Yet Is A Lot Less about PosterBoy Than You Think
I would like to thank Steve Lambert and the AAA for their last post on PosterBoy regarding his arrest. Sometimes I am so busy trying to keep the content updated on this site, I forget that some of the important issues this content brings forward are not as obvious to the rest of the world as they are to me.
That said there has been a flurry of activity around PosterBoy these days. Much of the activity has dealt with his recent arrest. Magazines and press that have run their opinions recently include, The New York Times, The New York Post, The New York Press, The New Yorker, The Economist, Gothamist, Gawker, and soon El Pais in Spain. I'm sure this list does not include half the content PosterBoy has been able to create in the last six months through his simple yet incredibly affective idea.
So they have arrested PosterBoy, or so the story goes. And yet we have all missed the point PosterBoy is trying to make.
PosterBoy like many activist public space artists is trying to challenge the current state of our public environment. The very fact that his activities are criminal at all is a result of the power that outdoor advertising exercises over our public lives, and the lack of power that is given to individuals for whom this public space should function. (This public project is a good example of the good that comes about through public interaction with public space) What's almost too good to be true is that unlike other public artists, graffiti and street alike, his project directly questions this tenuous relationship. And still all we can pay attention to is whether or not he's really Henry Matyjewicz, and did he or did he not get arrested.
By all means I will be there Monday morning at Henry's court appearance, and I undoubtedly am frustrated by the fact that he had to spend time in jail at all. The mere fact that the Anti-Vandal squad, (a task force of 75) or whatever branch of the NYPD that was used to pull off an undercover sting operation to arrest someone who has single handedly created more dialogue about the use of our public space, is astounding. But lets forget for one minute the issue of his arrest and think about why he is in this position, and who might be a better candidate to take his place.
The city runs a special task force through the DOB called the Sign Enforcement Unit. Headed by Edward Fortier, 5 individuals attempt to handle the overwhelming proliferation of illegal advertisements in the city. In fact their only task is to handle billboards, and yet they are swamped by the herculean task set before them. Often it takes them months to even get to illegal billboard complaints like this one, and even once they have located an illegal billboard, many more months of legal negotiations in order to finally have it removed. The cost of this task force as well as the legal battles which must take place, is paid for by YOU AND ME! PosterBoys activities cost you and I nothing, and instead of advertising content, he brings you critical issues.
The best part about this, and what makes us arguing over who we think PosterBoy is even more ridiculous, is that we know the full names of every landlord which operates illegal signage in the city. That's right, all you have to do is type in the address of a building with signage on it, and you can see if there is a permit for the sign. If there is no permit, you have the full name of the person responsible. And yet here we are arresting one of the only people in our city trying to make us aware of this fact.
What makes this whole thing even more absurd is that PosterBoy, for all his concerted efforts to bring to light this important issue, has made not a single dollar and remains committed to not profiting directly from any of this activity. Juxtapose the millions of dollars being made by the operation of illegal signage in the city by individuals whose names we know and for whom we need no sting operations and undercover detectives, and you quickly see for whom the public space is operating.
It is our duty to PosterBoy, and all those individuals who have put their safety on the line to bring you face to face with this glaring issue, to channel our frustration and energy to outing the real issue at hand. Henry Matyjewicz is not only not PosterBoy, but the NYPD, by his arrest, has failed the public at large by ignoring the real culprits, and the motivation behind PosterBoy's activism.
When discussing PosterBoy, let us not forget to talk about the other vandals operating in our city. This all just makes me think of the woman in the KCET Billboard Confidential video Part 3 saying, "It doesn't really seem like anybody cares and I don't really believe the city is capable of doing anything about it." PosterBoy has made you think about it, now lets make our city capable of doing something about it.
The following quote gets directly to the point of why I do the work I do. Small acts of civil disobedience are the only way I am able to push this important issue to the forefront of people's consciousness. In this case the French are merely carrying on a long history of mischief making that challenges the authority under which they live. It would seem in America we are much less tolerant of this behavior and fail to see the social benefits that come from everyday average citizens forgetting their better judgment in an effort to better the society they live in.
"You see commercial messages every day, you get them right in the face, in the subway, in the street, all the time, and if you don't want to, you do not have the choice," Baret declared over a megaphone. "So we are obliged to resort to civil disobedience. In a symbolic manner, we will tag a few billboards in order to provoke debate and push for things to progress."
TAKING ACTION: A member of the Dismantlers, a nationwide group that considers large public advertisements to be obtrusive and manipulative, is recorded as he defaces one near Place Malesherbes in Paris.
Activists opposed to billboards invite police to rallies where they tag the offending signs, seeking a day in court.
Reporting from Paris -- Over the centuries, the French have cultivated the fine art of rebellion.
The list of targets encompasses tyrants, wars, colonialism and, above all, capitalism in its many manifestations. The latest enemy may seem unlikely: billboards.
The Dismantlers, as a nationwide group of anti-ad crusaders call themselves, aren't violent or loud or clandestine. In fact, they invite the police to protest rallies where they deface signs. With a copywriter's flair, one of their slogans warns: "Attention! Avert your eyes from ads: You risk being very strongly manipulated." The goal of the Dismantlers is to get arrested, argue the righteousness of their cause in court and, you guessed it, gain publicity.
"We challenge the mercantile society that destroys all human relationships, professional relationships, health, the environment," said Alexandre Baret, 35, a founder of the group. "It's a message that proposes to attack advertising as the fuel of this not very healthy society."
Despite the stick-it-to-the-man rhetoric, there were neckties and briefcases in the crowd at an evening rally here a while back. Part-time insurgents had come from work for the gathering in the Place Malesherbes, an elegant, tree-lined plaza graced by statues of the author Alexandre Dumas and his musketeer hero D'Artagnan, one of literature's most irrepressible swashbucklers.
The 80-odd demonstrators, looking bohemian and stylish, listened to Baret set the ideological stage. The red-bearded schoolteacher and father of four explained that he doesn't want to abolish advertising, just limit signs to no more than 1.2 feet by 1.6 feet. The current wall-size dimensions are obtrusive and oppressive, he said.
The large and colorful billboards that are a fixture of the Paris streetscape are hard to ignore, especially the many suggestive ads for undergarments. Some consider them artistic; religious fundamentalists condemn them as proof of Western decadence.
"You see commercial messages every day, you get them right in the face, in the subway, in the street, all the time, and if you don't want to, you do not have the choice," Baret declared over a megaphone. "So we are obliged to resort to civil disobedience. In a symbolic manner, we will tag a few billboards in order to provoke debate and push for things to progress."
Baret urged the crowd to give a cordial welcome to the police. Advised by the activists ahead of time, the authorities had dispatched a squad of riot police, the renowned head-thumpers of the CRS, or Republican Security Companies.
The officers formed a cordon: burly and stern in blue uniforms, black gloves, pants tucked into lace-up boots. They looked bemused. They were no doubt thankful to tangle with polite leftists instead of housing-project gangs who have been known to "welcome" police with bricks, Molotov cocktails and gunfire.
Under Baret's direction, three activists approached billboards promoting audiovisual products and a television talk show and spray-painted them with slogans. The police slapped on handcuffs and led their prisoners to a van. There was applause. An accordion accompanied the crowd in a popular song, "The Deserter," with lyrics modified for the occasion. And that was that.
The Dismantlers represent an enduring contradiction of the French mentality. The center-right won the last elections by a comfortable margin. Juggernaut industries sell the world everything from jets to trains to wine. The average citizen enjoys long vacations, a beach or country home and a lifestyle that is the envy of the West.
Nonetheless, a large percentage of the population tells pollsters that it is hostile to the capitalist system. That ideological current produced the anti-advertising movement, which took off in 2003 and has won sympathy with its mix of economic and environmental messages.
"I think that when you get down to it, they are right," said Marina, 33, a restaurant worker who stopped to see what the fuss was about in the Place Malesherbes. "Between TV, Internet and advertising billboards, we are told about consumption all the time."
But Marina expressed doubt that this particular mini-revolution would triumph.
"I find it funny, but a little useless," she said. "I think tagging ads bothers passersby more than anything. A sign full of graffiti is even worse than having to look at an ad."
Unlike anarchists or other groups that engage in hit-and-run tactics, the Dismantlers see the courtroom as a battlefield of choice. They gather contributions to pay fines that are often low because judges tend to be lenient and the vandalism is calculated to remain minimal.
Baret appeared at a hearing last month on charges of "unauthorized advertising." The case involved an incident in 2007 when he was caught plastering commuter trains with the "avert your eyes" stickers.
Baret, who like his fellow insurgents is a veteran defendant, had refused to pay the $58 fine. His lawyer argued that his actions were less destructive than the 57,000 giant signs that fill the train stations of France.
"The advertisements are energy-intensive, they use paper from forests," the lawyer said. "It's an assault on individual liberties, an advertising aggression."
In response, the prosecutor reminded the accused that "the tribunal is not a tribune." A lawyer representing the French railroad company, which demanded a symbolic $1.30 in damages and $650 for legal costs, chided the activists for returning to rabble-rousing of "years ago."
A verdict is expected in February. But the Dismantlers say they have already won by making people stop and think about the messages that bombard them each day.
"The advertising budget in France is $39 billion a year," said Antoine Trouillard, a 26-year-old philosophy student and activist.
"That's equivalent to the entire education budget in France. . . . Our movement goes a lot further than a simple symbolic gesture. And that's what we want the public to understand."
I was tipped off that LEETO hit the big blank canvas PosterBoy provided a while back and sure enough when I went to the site he had. One may not agree with the content that was provided by LEETO, a quick "throw up" (used by graffiti artists when they are in a spot which is dangerous and don't have time to execute a more intricate piece), but one can't overlook the public interaction and communication happening here. It should be noted that the criminalization of graffiti by the city is responsible for LEETO's inability to carry out something more elegant and earnest in this situation.
I could not be happier with the direction this project has gone. It is a crystal clear image of how the public space should be used and for whom it should be used. Thanks PosterBoy and thanks LEETO for taking the time to talk to us through your environment. We are listening.
PosterBoy has been getting amazing web traffic lately and I love it. People are clearly responding to his work and I think it's an amazing opportunity to really push the issues surrounding outdoor advertising's control of the public environment. After all this is about change, and that requires a public consciousness growing. One of the things I've heard him reiterate time and time again is that this project is not his art as much as a form of protest that anyone can participate in. My work happens over public advertising as well so this isn't new territory but I thought I'd try my hand at his process. I gotta tell you it wasn't as easy as it seems on those videos of him. If you make a subway alteration please email it to me and I will post it immediately.
Oddly enough I missed my momma's birthday and she can't do dinner this Friday cause she has a date. Happy birthday momma, I love you. We can do Thursday.
I'm reading Walter Lippman'sPublic Opinion and came across some interesting quotes. The chapter they come from is called The Buying Public and talks about the tenuous relationship between advertisers, newspapers, and the buying public.
"It would be regarded as an outrage to have to pay openly the price of a good ice cream soda for all the news of the world, though the public will pay that and more when it buys the advertised commodities. The public pays for the press, but only when the payment is concealed [by advertising]."
Unlike those comoddities we are willing to pay for, the news is expected to be open, fair, truthful and above all free, in many ways a right in democratic society. It is in the end how we shape our understanding of the world we live in and then function as informed citizens.
"The real problem is that the readers of a newspaper, unaccustomed to paying the cost of news-gathering, can be capitalized only by turning them into circulation that can be sold to manufacturers and merchants."
Our inability to accept the cost of running what we want to be a democratic and transparent endeavor, the news, results in the sale of this institution to advertising and inevitably corporate interests.
The public environment we live in is not so dissimilar. In an effort to create a space true to the publics interest we must be willing to accept the cost and not rely on corporate sponsors to fund our public spaces, be they advertising, Business improvement Districts, Park Conservancies, or any other type of public institution funded by private monies.
Some of the topics I choose to address may seem a little far off base but negotiating a common public space is a complex issue with many facets. The removal of outdoor advertising from the public environment is negotiated everyday by our interaction with the market and our streets.
Zip Car is a rent by the hour, membership based rental car company throughout the United States. They offer cheap access to cars in major urban centers and have become a smart way to "own" a car in a congested and expensive city environment. Social responsibility and the removal of cars from the road is part of their mission statement.
It turns out they are paying attention to other urban concerns as well. At the end of a customer survey I came across an interesting multiple choice question.
How would you rate the value of the following services? from High-low.
A car with advertising on the exterior or interior (whether electronic or traditional) offered at reduced rates
Reduced rates subsidized by advertising on zipcar.com (e.g. you would see ads when you went to make a reservation)
Instead of just placing advertising on the cars and charging the same rates, Zipcar is offering the public an opportunity to weigh in on how much driving around an advertisement is worth in savings.
In an era of advertising overload this is a good lesson in economics. If zipcar reduces rates after selling advertising space, they will get nothing out of the deal. Instead they are presenting themselves as socially responsible, and in many ways integrating themselves into the public identity by allowing the public to make decisions for the company. They see profit from their services rising by possibly not selling ad space. How novel.
I just found this site and thought it was appropriate. Citizens against ugly street spam is an organization of people who are fed up with this type of illegal outdoor advertising.
They go as far as to tell you how to make the tools required to remove this junk, and I think it's pretty awesome. Take a look.
I recently began removing advertisements without putting anything back. This started around Christmas when I removed 50 ads as a gesture to the three illegal billboards LA received in their stocking this year. I have continued to remove ads without replacing them for a "how to" video involving phone kiosks that I am working on.
I noticed that every time I come back to a phone kiosk I left empty, the replacement ad is a public service announcement. It seems that the ad companies print a set amount of posters and once those run out the only thing to replace missing ads with is the overstock of public service announcements they have in the van.
Amazingly enough this fact has left several of the phone kiosks I worked on with all three sides bearing different public service posters. It seems here "The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too." Bakunin
I received an interesting email this morning asking me if I knew anything about blue tooth advertising laws in the city and whether or not it was banned. The email came from a man I will not name at a company called Street Blimps, so I was understandably a little wary. After deciding it was safe I made the call and realized very quickly I had nothing to worry about and wasn't talking to anyone suspect.
Apparently a Google search had returned my name and involvement with the illegal billboards site. funny. He seemed genuinely interested with our public space concerns and explained his disgust with the scaffolding advertising scandal that plagued New York a while back. He told me a client wanted to know about Blue Tooth advertising options and was curious about what I knew. I told him I knew very little except that the new Cemusa Bus Shelters were supposed to have Blue Tooth technology both for ad content as well as bus information.
He then began to tell me how only 25% of phones have Blue Tooth and that text for information was available on all phones, making it a much better advertising tool. He also made a comment we both picked up on regarding the privacy issues allowed through text for information advertising versus blue tooth advertising. I was happy to hear an advertiser talking about privacy issues and told him a little more about my work.
This got us in to a little social responsibility frenzy at which point he explained his prior job in environmental products ten years before entering the advertising industry. He talked about it with passion and interest. That is not to say that he wasn't talking about his current job with as much fervor. I only bring it up because he did. His unprompted explanation for being in the ad industry was responsibility, including children.
Street Blimps is an advertising company which specializes in the more avant-gard forms. Amongst its repertoire, sidewalk stickers, projection billboards, mobile billboards (billboards on trucks) street teams, ad balloons, Segways, vehicle wraps and "innovative ideas". If these were the products being pushed for the last ten years, who was the contradiction I was talking to, and why did it sound so familiar?
I think it is safe to say a large portion of people I know or have met in advertising had aspirations for other things. They may not have been on any grander scale or meant anything more to the world, I only say that they thought of other things and ended up with advertising. It seems many of us, myself included, have issues we fail to see or choose not to look at.
Lippman Says, "From father to son, from prelate to novice, from veteran to cadet, certain ways of seeing and doing are taught."
To This Day, Subway Mural Project Can Still Inspire
In the following NY times article it becomes very clear using public space and art to foster someones connection to their environment is always a good idea. It bridges gaps between the self and community and helps people not only understand themselves in relation to a space but in their ability to transform that space for greater purposes. This is always empowering and often is part of the reason street and graffiti artists do what they do.
I think it's important to take the ramifications of this article very seriously. If community use of public space is beneficial to the residents and therefore the community as a whole, why do we allow the public environment to be over run by advertising?
Some say because it creates much needed revenue for the city. The percentage of city operating costs that advertising covers, much of which goes to private landlords and real estate owners who provide the wall space, is a very small amount compared to overall city budget. Not to mention the question which no one seems to ask, which is how on earth has an entire city become dependent on public advertising revenue to cover even a portion of its operating costs.
Add to this that many Artists and eccentrics don't need an invitation to use the public space as a vehicle for expression, communication and ultimately as a way to understand thier personal relationship to the community. They are willing to do it for free. All the benefits of a community project sponsored by the city happening on a daily basis through individual participation.
It is in fact the health of the city we are talking about here. We are weighing the revenue gained through outdoor advertising against the beneficial process of community art making and civil visual interaction.
From left, Lisa Branch, Nitza Tufino and Kim Ferguson discussed one of the murals at the 86th Street subway station on the Upper West Side.
By MARTIN ESPINOZA Published: January 5, 2009
When the No. 3 train roars by the 86th Street station on the Upper West Side, the dingy platform becomes the noisiest, if not the most unlikely, museum in the city.
The station is the permanent home of 37 ceramic murals, mounted almost 20 years ago on the walls of the platform and mostly ignored by commuters waiting for the next train.
But every now and then, commuter indifference gives way to curiosity, just long enough for someone to take in a portrait of a not-so-distant Upper West Side past.
There is the mural of subway riders boarding a red No. 2 express train at the 96th Street station nearby, or the two Hasidic men pushing pink baby strollers in front of a Chinese restaurant. In another, two old people inch their way toward an M104 bus.
These are no masterpieces. Most of the young people who created them were troubled or struggling students trying to earn their high school equivalency degree. Were the murals to be removed and sold, they probably would not fetch anywhere near as much as the 200 subway art projects by professional artists commissioned since 1985 by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Arts for Transit program.
But their value is measured in other ways, especially to the students who created them and a neighborhood that has grown accustomed to them since they were installed in August 1989.
Going on 20 years later, a number of these young people look back on a community art project that left a lasting impression on their lives. For some, it was a turning point. Others say they wish they had left a more personal mark on history. “When I see it now, I see all the love that I put in that work,” said Leeama Scott, 44, who was a teenage immigrant from Trinidad when she worked on the murals.
Some have left the Upper West Side, and some have fled New York City altogether. But wherever they ended up, most have become the subjects they portrayed: the office worker headed downtown, the parent playing with a son or daughter in the park, the community organizer, the teacher.
Guy Monpremier, 43, came to the United States in 1985 to escape political turmoil and violence in his native Haiti. For him and others, the mural project was a chance to explore the world beyond his immediate environment.
At the time, he was attending high school equivalency classes at Grosvenor Neighborhood House, a settlement house on West 105th Street.
Grosvenor, an urban refuge of social service and education programs housed in a bleak rectangular structure that looks more like a compact jail, had been brought into discussions over how to spend $205,000 in amenity financing that had been promised by a developer constructing a high-rise condominium at 84th Street and Broadway. Some of the money went toward the project, which paid for materials and a $4-an-hour stipend for the 17 students who participated.
Carrying 35-millimeter cameras, Mr. Monpremier and the others were dispatched throughout the two-square-mile neighborhood to capture images of landmarks and typical urban scenes. The negatives of the best scenes were then made into slides, and the images projected onto a wall, where they were traced onto paper.
These drawings were transferred in reverse onto 23-by-30-inch linoleum sheets that were then stamped onto large sheets of clay. The large clay images were cut into pieces small enough to fit into kilns and fired, then painted with colored glaze, put back together like puzzle pieces, then finally mounted onto large frames.
Mr. Monpremier, like a number of students involved in the project, had plans to study the arts afterward. He attended Manhattan Community College for a time, but his studies were cut short. He is now director of security for a commercial real estate firm and lives in Crown Heights, Brooklyn.
His contributions to the murals include a Broadway island bench scene, one of two older people getting on the bus and a street-corner view of Grosvenor.
A slight note of melancholy enters Mr. Monpremier’s voice when he recalls that period of his life. He has now invested hopes of a better future in his 10-year-old son, Joshua.
“He’s a good kid, I’m blessed with that,” Mr. Monpremier said. “I hope he’s able to do better than I have, as far as completing a college degree. That’s one thing that I’ve always wanted, as far as completing it. I never really had the energy to do it. But he’s also pushing me to go back.”
Clarisa Ureña started having children when she was 19, three years after she moved out of her parents’ home. She had two by the time she got involved with the mural project.
While Ms. Ureña studied for her high school equivalency exam, her children attended a day care program at Grosvenor. In the afternoons, she labored over a classic scene, the Lincoln Center fountain plaza. She lived one block away, on 106th Street, and Grosvenor had long been a part of her life.
“We had a responsibility, and if you didn’t meet the criteria you were out,” Ms. Ureña said of herself and the other students. “I was not the kind of person who could sit around the apartment.”
Her roles as wife, cook and mother supplanted her early interest in education, until the mural project came along.
Ms. Ureña, who moved to Garner, N.C., almost four years ago, said the project motivated her to go to college. She studied computer graphics and advertising at Bronx Community College, and after having a third child in the early 1990s, she received a bachelor’s degree in art education from City College. For a brief time she taught art to elementary schoolchildren in the South Bronx. In North Carolina, she works for Wake County’s food stamps program.
Mrs. Scott, then Leeama Blugh, attended equivalency classes at Grosvenor during the day and in the evening worked there as an assistant, helping younger children with their homework. She said the project had so inspired her that she thought seriously of pursuing a career in the arts. But her life took different turns. She attended beauty school and worked at various beauty salons in the city. Over the years, she has worked as a home attendant and an office worker on Wall Street. She now works in security.
Mrs. Scott said she had no regrets that her dreams of becoming an artist had faded. “When I look back and see all these things that I did, it makes me feel good,” she said.
Original plans for the mural project called for a less significant role for the students. A professional artist would design the work and hire students to do the manual labor, said Nitza Tufiño, 59, the artist brought in to direct the projectand teach the students how to make the tiles. Ms. Tufiño, the daughter of Rafael Tufiño, a prominent Puerto Rican painter and printmaker who died last year, said she viewed the project as an instrument for social change. Having the students work on an assembly line for another artist, for $4 an hour, would have had little impact on their lives, she said.
“How can you ask a young man, who could have $1,000 in his pocket selling drugs, to manufacture plaques that were created by someone else?” Ms. Tufiño said. “Think about what you’re competing against in el barrio.”
Inside her home in South Orange, N.J., Ms. Tufiño has kept dozens of black and white photographs, contact sheets, negatives and slides documenting the mural project. Many of the photos show the students in the Grosvenor workshop, a space no larger than a public school bathroom, drawing, rolling clay and carving linoleum.
Twenty years ago, Sandra Bloodworth, director of the Arts for Transit program, was new to the transportation agency, and the mural project was her first assignment as a supervisor.
“It’s amazing that it’s had such timelessness,” Ms. Bloodworth said. “No one thought anything like that would last. People thought it would be destroyed in a week.”
On a recent visit to the station, with Kim Ferguson and Lisa Branch, two participants who have remained close friends to this day, Ms. Tufiño reflected on the project.
“You know what’s weird?” Ms. Ferguson said as she walked down the platform, pointing to murals she worked on. “I still remember how to do the whole thing.”
Ms. Ferguson worked on the mural depicting commuters boarding the No. 2 train at 96th Street. In another mural, this one made by Ms. Branch, Ms. Ferguson is shown sitting next to two children on a brownstone stoop, wearing a yellow jumpsuit.
Ms. Ferguson, 41, is now a community organizer for the New York City Mission Society’s Minisink Townhouse in Harlem. She said the work she does today is a continuation of the help given to her at a critical time in her life.
Ms. Branch, 40, gave birth to her first child, Timothy, seven months ago, and until recently worked as a receptionist for Bear Stearns through a temp agency.
She brought Timothy along for the station visit, dutifully covering his ears every time a train roared past. In an interview before the visit, Ms. Branch said she had recently seen the tile murals from a passing No. 2 train.
“I said, ‘Wow, 20 years later and they’re still beautiful, just like when we put them up there,’ ” she said. “That’s something to show my son when he’s of the age to know what that is. So I can say, ‘Look, your mommy did that.’ ”
"The Dog Dies": Movie Spoiler Graffiti Hits Los Angeles
Having not seen this movie, which by the way is exploding box offices, I didn't realize the graffiti that has been showing up in Los Angeles is actually a movie spoiler. Given this, the messages are extremely disarming to the power the ad has to attract viewers. The ad may not itself be gone but the experience it is advertising is rendered useless through the added message by revealing the ending.
This is an interesting distinction for me that I have never considered, being adamant about total ad removal except in the most specific cases. If this graffiti were placed over an ad for Coca Cola, the product would suffer very little. Since Coca Cola's objective is brand recognition first and foremost and not the actual product, the fact that the brand is not obscured would mean the ad remains potent. In advertising for movies and other products or services which rely on the actual product to promote itself, total obstruction of the ad is not necessary. A detournement, or witty alteration may suffice to destroy the ad as well as point to the moment of interaction and communication taking place between viewer and individual.
This is not to say that any scrawl over an advertisement of this type will take the air out of the ad and turn the campaign on itself. The content of the alteration must speak to the product and displace whatever authority it might hold. This acknowledgment opens up a method of taking back public space from advertising content I have been very slow to recognize but have come to respect through this piece.
With that said, the objective of Public Ad Campaign is not to debunk advertising content, but rather to question its authority in the public environment and what adverse effects we are under because of it. Removal of the ad for individually created content is more to that point and speaks to an environment where the public creates content instead of reacting to it.
Bringing light to the Nike ACG Boots “The Strength Inside” campaign, Nike Sportswear partnered with a handful of high school teens in and around New York City, Philadelphia and Baltimore to create a photographic journal representing the concept of “What strength means to you”. The Center for Arts Education (NYC) and the Peace and Love (Philly/B-more) organization brought over 250 kids together for the billboard campaign as one picture from the following neighborhoods/cities were chosen: Queens, Harlem, Brooklyn, Philadelphia and Baltimore. The winning entries from each city/borough will have their images displayed on billboards during the month of January in 2009. Two of the winners seen here include Brooklyn winner Kimone Napier (Billboard located at the corner of Flatbush Ave. & Washington Ave., Brooklyn, NY) and Queens winner Cindy Bencosme (Billboard located at the corner of Jamaica Ave & Sutphin Blvd, Queens, NY).
Giving children access to their own forms of personal communication in the public is a vital way to invigorate peoples investment in their community and public space. Not only do the children understand how their ideas can become a part of the public dialogue but also others within the community bear witness to alternative voices controlling the subject matter of visual communication. It can be extremely empowering to individuals and communities alike and should not be taken lightly. This video of Tom14 speaks to the importance of such community interaction.
How then do we consider this project, which is a stunt for Nike, but yet still a legitimate community project? I don't feel able to fully discredit this project solely on the basis of it being advertising because if all outdoor advertising was done similarly, the city would be a much different place. In fact this change in where outdoor visual content is taken from would result in the great businesses of our communities becoming the curators of our cities art and ideas. Instead of simplistic on way messages meant to steal your attention, companies would gain time in our thoughts by bringing the most interesting content to our city streets.
It's a novel idea and one which can make you imagine how other uses of our public environment might suite the city better without directly changing any of the more rigid power structures which exist in a commodity based market system.
If anything, I've found that a single act of participation can ignite a lifetime of interaction in the public. With that in mind, as well as a large project I am cooking up with PosterBoy, I have realized the need to personally introduce people to the physical act of reclaiming public space. The invisible hand which seems to say that public interaction is off limits to the average citizen, is actually just that, invisible and ultimately non-existent. Once you have committed an act of social rearrangement you realize that you are truly free to do what you want with little to no consequence.
That said, a now friend of mine who we will call John, asked me how he could do his own public billboard advertisements illegally. I having never actually changed a billboard and thought the first step would be getting our hands dirty, realizing that with a little bit of fearlessness and the right tools you can pretty much do anything. We set out last Monday afternoon to tackle three of my favorite public advertising venues for takeover, public phone kiosks, NPA outdoor street level billboards, and subway platform advertisements. I produced two phone kiosk pieces, two subway platform pieces, and prepared the paint for two NPA outdoor ad removals.
The first thing we did was paint over the NPA ads, which John was slightly nervous about but finished without hesitation. The next ad we hit was a phone kiosk which he removed without batting an eye and on the downtown side of oncoming traffic. I explained that it was slightly more dangerous because a cop car driving up the street would be much more likely to stop him. He scoffed at the idea and removed the ad with me watching out. The last was the subway platform ads which he refused to do because it was mid afternoon. This was not such a bad call on his part because subway platforms are much less crowded late at night and you are less likely to see police. Nonetheless I showed him how it could be done and in the future I'm sure John would have no problem attempting this on his own.
If anyone has any interest in running through the gauntlet, I am more than happy to provide the tools and materials for a fun afternoon on the streets.
Two different phone kiosk pieces, one posted by each of us
(detail of first)
NPA outdoor site we both painted over
Subway platform install which I did and John filmed
As I exited the John and Lispanard Street ACE train exit, I found what I think is some artists handiwork. If this is artwork, it was done very professionally, using adhesive backed vinyl printing and made to size accordingly. What makes me think this is artwork is the sample I removed which is slightly different material than the rest of the ads in the subway system. If someone is aware of who this work is done by, please contact me. I would love to get in touch.
I recently watched The Black Press, soldiers without swords, directed by Stanley Nelson. It chronicles the rise and influence of African American run newspapers after the civil war up to the rise of the civil rights movement. Although only a small section is dedicated to discussing the types of advertisements shown in these newspapers, some glaring realities came forward. Chief amongst these was that the reliance on big advertising money to run operations was directly related to the nature of the content printed. I won't even get into whether or not the "nature" of the content changed for the better or worse, I only care that it changed. It seems this idea can be applied ubiquitously, including the public environment, which gives us reason to examine the "nature" of the change that outdoor advertising - by sponsoring our transit authority, financing our stadiums and public institutions as well as our public parks - has had on that public space. Like the newspapers relying on little to no private sponsorship, would our public space be similarly transformed into a more authentic honest and original representation of our collective social desires?
Reports like this using the "broken windows" theory ran rampant in New York City at the height of the graffiti "epidemic" in the 80's. Two books, one by Miriam Greenberg called the Branding New York, How a City in Crisis was sold to the world, and Jeff Ferrell's Crimes of style, help to put this idea into perspective. Urban scrawl, one of the factors this research points to which can cause civil disobedience, is a symptom of the criminalization of visual street interactions carried out by public residents. In Crimes of Style Ferrell points out that once graffiti had been criminalized by the city, artists had far less time to do their work and as a result the large beautiful murals you often saw adorning the subway cars turned into the quick throwups and tagging. The use of the term to graffiti to define tagging is offensive to some on the basis that the true art is much more complex and has its roots in community mural painting more than it does in vandalism. To point out that scrawl is a cause of more civil disobedience overlooks the fact that those lawless areas are often a result of our city "protecting" us against the very scrawl that supposedly creates this lawlessness. If we open our city to public interaction on all levels, much of the blight will be taken care of by those individuals who are credited with causing that blight in the first place.
10:17 21 November 2008 by Andy Coghlan
People become more disobedient in environments plagued by litter and graffiti, research has shown.
They can be tempted to trespass, drop litter, and even steal money if they perceive from their environment that it's OK to break rules - such as when "no litter" signs are flagrantly ignored.
"[It's better to have] no rule than one that no-one complies with," says Kees Keizer, head of the team at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands which conducted the latest experiments.
The research is the first to confirm experimentally that disorder and disobedience grow in neighbourhoods where rules are openly flouted, a phenomenon dubbed "broken window" theory.
"Broken window theory says that if there are broken windows in houses, it will lead to more disorder and a degrading neighbourhood," says Keizer.
Keizer says that despite the theory dating from 1982, no-one had conclusively proved it's true, so he and colleagues Siegwart Lindenberg and Linda Steg set up six practical experiments to put it to the test.
In each of the experiments, the researchers set up real-life situations in Groningen in which random citizens would be tempted to do something unruly, illegal, or antisocial. Then, they discreetly watched what happened, without the passers-by realising they were under observation.
Increased theft
In the most striking experiment, Keizer left a €5 note protruding from a fully addressed envelope that itself was poking out of a mailbox. The team discovered that people were less likely to steal the money if there was no graffiti or litter on or around the mailbox.
With no litter or graffiti, 13% of the passers-by stole the money. Thefts doubled to 27% when the mailbox was daubed with graffiti, or to 25% when it was surrounded by litter. "It's quite shocking that the mere presence of litter doubled the number of people stealing," says Keizer.
In another experiment, motorists returning to collect their cars were three times more likely to trespass through an illegal, 200-metre short-cut to the car park if bicycles had been illegally locked to railings next to the forbidden entrance.
A massive 87% took the short cut when they saw the illegally parked bicycles, despite a police sign saying "No Trespassing". This compared with 27% trespassing when the bicycles were not locked to the fence.
Another experiment in a cycle park bearing a clear anti-graffiti sign, revealed that cyclists were twice as likely to leave litter if the researchers had daubed graffiti on the walls. The team attached bogus flyers to the bikes' handlebars to put the owners in a situation where they had to decide whether or not to litter.
'Declaring war'
The researchers conclude that one type of antisocial behaviour leads to others, because people's sense of social obligation to others is eroded. "When people think they can get away with it because other people already have, they do," says Keizer.
The other major conclusion is that signs probably make things worse if it's clear that people are ignoring them. The trick, says Keizer, is to persuade citizens that other people in their own community will suffer if they fail to observe norms of responsible behaviour.
"You're calling on people's obligations to others rather than saying: 'Don't do this'," he says.
A good example, says Keizer, is a smoking ban introduced during the summer in Dutch restaurants. There was huge opposition to it, he says, because the government failed to explain the objective of the ban in terms of protecting other people from the damaging effects of passive smoking.
In places like Ireland and Scotland, by contrast, the bans were accepted because the potential for harming others was made much more explicit.
Keizer says that the research is the first to explain and demonstrate experimentally the "broken windows theory", but he adds that it would be a mistake to see it as vindication of "zero-tolerance" policies, like those deployed to clean up New York in the mid-1990s.
Zero-tolerance policies can be counterproductive, he says, because people simply see them as declaration of war and carry on offending.
Geraldine Pettersson, a consultant in London who co-authored a 2003 report on graffiti for the UK Department of Transport agreed. "You make it sound like a battle, and it becomes a challenge to them," she says. Pettersson says that the results do indeed support the broken window theory. "People associate the presence of graffiti with a lack of social control and management of their neighbourhood or environment, and it relays the message that no-one is 'in charge'," she says.
Volunteer Billboard Inventory in Council District 11: We’ve Got the Results
This is the kind of community involvement that is needed to even begin to take on and disarm the outdoor advertising industry. I applaud those who volunteered their time and efforts on this project. As one of the comments to this post stated, "We now have something measurable to take to our Neighborhood Councils, Neighborhood associations, the CRA, Planning Commission and to our City Council members." One of the major problems fighting illegal signage is the lack of public awareness and veil of secrecy surrounding the illegality of so much of outdoor advertising.
It seems LA has been over saturated by outdoor advertising, and is seeing a strong community response. A recent New York Times article speaks to the outrage that prompts the kind reaction we are seeing come out of that city. Tensions are high enough to move forward a proposed citywide block-by-block survey and inspection of the estimated 10,000 billboards beginning February 1st. Ban Billboard Blight is skeptical whether or not this will happen "because an assistant City Attorney has said that he expects billboard companies to go to court to challenge whatever fee the city decides to levy to pay for the program."
The district, represented by Councilman Bill Rosendahl, runs from the 405 freeway west to the ocean, and includes Brentwood and Pacific Palisades on the north, and LAX on the south. Here’s what they found:
Total Number of Billboards: 563
Number of Digital (Electronic) Billboards: 17 (a number that may be increasing as you read this)
And what is the most billboard-infested street in the district? The clear winner is Lincoln Blvd. which runs from the Santa Monica border south through Westchester, with a total of 84 billboards. Here are the other streets that qualify for the billboard Hall of Shame.
Santa Monica Blvd. 61
Pico Blvd. 44
Wilshire Blvd. 32
Sepulveda Blvd. 28
Century Blvd. 28
Olympic Blvd. 24
And what company owns most of these signs? No surprise that two of the largest outdoor advertisers in the country take that prize Here are the numbers for the five companies with the largest number of billboards.
Clear Channel 143
CBS Outdoor 136
Vista Media 49
Regency Outdoor 47
Fuel Outdoor 43
There were a total of 34 billboards that had no identification, although the city’s sign ordinance requires all off-site signs to be clearly labeled with the name of the sign owner, the city permit number, and other information.
Tomorrow at 1:30 I will be meeting Stephanie Diamond and her Pace University Class at the SW corner of Wooster and Grand. Stephanie was an unexpected collaborator with one of my first public projects back December of 2000. I only found out about the conversation our work was having through a small article in the New York Times City Section. Stephanie has been kind enough to ask me to lead the class and her on a quick jaunt to see and discuss outdoor advertising and street arts relation to each other, and the public environment in general. Please feel free to join us.
Many forms of outdoor advertising structure that are located on private property in New York City are illegal because they do not conform to city regulations determined by the Department of Buildings. These rules require permits for advertising structures, which allows the city to keep tabs on outdoor advertising and make decisions about when, where, and how they go up. In the City illegal advertising venues operated by NPA outdoor are overlooked for more pressing issues the DOB must deal with everyday. Provided we had the manpower these illegal advertisements would be removed, though probably not before a major battle was fought over their placement on private property, something the city cannot control. Great examples of this are the NPA outdoor wildposting locations throughout the city.
This new form of advertising I ran into tonight shows the ways in which outdoor advertising can circumnavigate its illegal tendencies in our city space. Being on a private pull down gate, and not a structure in need of a DOB permit, this advertisement is completely legal. Without recourse, the public is expected to endure the onslaught of outdoor advertising which can take advantage of these legal channels.
This raises an important issue for me, and that is the definition of private property when it is in public space. Without a doubt, outdoor advertising effects our public environment, and without being able to control it we kneel before its imposing will. Should we not make an attempt to more thoroughly define how our public space is used in general and declare private property in public, public property. Decisions about how that private space is used, which effects the public, would be left up to all of us, as opposed to the property owner. If as a public, we decide that outdoor advertising is unacceptable, the public would have the right to demand its removal despite it being legal because of its placement on private property, permitted or not.
Supergraphic Signs: Are They Fire Safety Hazards? Councilman Says “Yes”
The language used by many anti billboard and general advertising blight advocates is troubling to me. I am well aware of the fact that in our culture a legal battle is often more immediately effective in the removal of outdoor advertising than a discussion about the negative consequences, to ourselves, and our city environment. The problem is these efforts remove outdoor advertising only to see it re-posted in the same location at a later time, or moved to another place entirely. In order to fully reform our city space to function for those people who live in that space, residents must understand their relationship to the city public and what that space should offer them. I help produce the illegal billboards website, which locates un-permitted illegal signage in New York, but as far as I'm concerned all outdoor advertising is illegal.
Almost a year ago, city building inspectors raised this issue at a meeting of the Board of Building and Safety Commissioners.
These huge signs wrapped over the entire sides of buildings and covering windows could impede firefighters in an emergency, they said. And because almost all the signs have been put up without permits or inspections, they added, there isn’t any way to know if the material or manner of installation meets fire safety standards.
Now, City Councilman Jack Weiss wants the fire department to conduct sweeps to identify hazardous supergraphic signs, and get them immediately removed. At a press conference yesterday on Wilshire Blvd. with a huge supergraphic as a backdrop, Weiss also said he would introduce an ordinance to ban unsafe materials and installations.
“Supergraphics are going up all around the City and the advertising they carry has blocked views and architecture, but today we know that some of these supergraphics also are blocking escape routes and posing a safety hazard for people inside,” Weiss said.
A Fire Department official estimated that there are 90-100 such signs now installed on buildings throughout the city. Because these signs fall under the city’s 2002 ban on new off-site advertising signs, a number have been cited by building inspectors, but one sign company, World Wide Rush, sued the city and this past summer obtained a federal court injunction against enforcement of the ban.
The city council just this week received a communication from City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo regarding a closed-door meeting for a “settlement discussion” in that case. By now, everyone knows that the settlement Delgadillo negotiated with Clear Channel and other billboard companies in 2006 has turned out to be disastrous for the city, so stay tuned.
Last Saturday I was walking through Union Square around 6:30pm, and came across a fantastic scene. In many ways it helped to clarify my own understanding of what true individual to individual public interaction was about, while juxtaposing it with the same scenario mediated by an advertising experience.
AArrow Spinners, a young outdoor advertising company that employs energetic youth and dance spectacle to attract attention for advertising purposes, was performing at the top of the stairs on the southern end of Union Square. At the same time a band called Brothers Moving, a young group of buskers, was performing less than 200 feet away. Each group was enthusiastically entertaining and gathering a crowd quickly.
Video was being shot, and photos taken, by a variety of individuals passing through. I stood back and observed the crowd, realizing this was a unique situation for me. Those who seemed to be using the space more transiently were immediately attracted to the AArrow Spinners, taking photos as they moved from one end of the square to the next. Those individuals that were waiting for someone, or meandering about with some time to kill, generally stopped and gathered around the entire event.
Over the course of about 30 minutes I watched this group slowly make its way to what became a large crowd of nearly a hundred people seated in front of the Brothers Moving. Tips were being tossed in a guitar case and cd's were being purchased, all while the crowd enjoyed a very personal (no mics or amps) musical experience. This migration left the AArrow Spinners with a much smaller crowd watching their antics.
I have always assumed that street art/performance/interaction, are valuable tools that use the public environment to bring together people who would often otherwise not interact. In doing so they create a cohesion amongst the public that emphatically demands an autonomous public use of the public environment. To reiterate the need for a public space of congregation for the exchange of public ideas, is to present a vision of a public forum where in the individual triumphs over the imposition of a few. It mimics the rules of the medieval carnival, where top down authority gives way to individual visions of society as a whole, even if those visions do not support the positions of authority.
These two street performances, which I must grant to both the AArrow Spinners and the Brothers Moving, were exercising their own individual visions for the public environment. Both of them were creating an entertaining environment filled with public interaction and reaction. Yet the performance which most captivated the audience was the one without something asked of the viewer.
Everytime I became lost in the dancing and acrobatics of the AArrow Spinners, I was wrenched out of the experience by the constant realization that this was all being done for my allegiance. This was most hieghtened when the dance action was stopped by a move made to attract my attention to the text on the sign. My interest was constantly asked to confirm my consumption of the product being advertised.
As I stood in front of the Brothers Moving, I quickly became aware that I was tapping my foot and found I had not thought about what I was watching so much as had been enjoying it for quite sometime. The experience was immersive and interactive. I found myself making eye contact and smiling at the kazoo player as he strut a small circle in front of the crowd. My interest here was left to my own choosing and I found it very satisfying.
My thoughts wandered around as I stood there watching the band play. I thought about how fun it must be to sing in front of such a large crowd of strangers. I thought about what kind of people would stop and listen to this kind of music and why the crowd did not fit my expectations. I thought about dinner. I thought about what a nice night it was. All the while those thoughts went on uninterrupted.
I left Union Square thinking. I left Union Square excited about the city. I left Union Square happy to be living around such an incredibly rich group of people and happy I had a moment to sit with them. I did not leaving thinking about AArrow Spinners and whatever advertisement they had wanted me to take notice of.
This is an amazing interview with Tom14 that illustrates the important link between street art and community. It speaks to the destruction of public space and street art's role in defying what many consider the inevitable "progression" of neighborhoods away from what community members consider their home. To interact with your environment is to stake claim to the ways it is used, and to renegotiate the power structure which determines its fate.
Eduardo Moises Penalver & Sonia Kaytal Property Outlaws: How Squatters, Pirates, and Protesters Improve the Law of Ownership Barbara Ehrenreich Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy Lewis Hyde The Gift, Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World Geoffrey Miller Spent: Sex, Evolution, & Consumer Behavior Sharon Zukin The Cultures of Cities Miriam Greenberg Branding New York Naomi Klein No Logo Kalle Lasn Culture Jam Stuart Ewen Captains of Consciousness Stuart Ewen All Consuming Images Stuart & Elizabeth Ewen Channels of Desire Jeff Ferrell Crimes of Style Jeff Ferrell Tearing Down the Streets John Berger Ways of Seeing Joe Austin Taking the Train Rosalyn Deutsche Evictions art + spatial politics Jane Jacobs Death+Life of American Cities
We just got an email from Andrew Berman at the Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation regarding the illegal Equinox signage at Greenwich Ave. & 12th street. As it explains very thoroughly what has been done to remove the illegal signage, I will copy it below verbatim. Amongst other things the GVSHP polices advertising and signage infractions within their community and has a great track record for making things happen. It seems from this email that the ball is rolling and that this illegal sign will likely come down quickly.
At first glance it would seem that the public is less concerned about the smaller less obtrusive signage pictured above and run illegally by NPA. Rather I think we have become so accustomed to these smaller signs that we cannot imagine they are actually illegal. In fact I think unless something glares so brightly that you cannot not notice it, most of us spend little time assessing the quality of our city streets and realizing that we have some level of control over those spaces. This knowledge is not only fantastic on the individual level, but collectively if we question and take responsibility for our public spaces we become very invested in our neighborhoods and communities.
