Forget About the Time, Just Buy More Office Supplies!
Here's the big old Staples on Sixth Avenue in the Village, where the Emigrant Savings Bank used to be. It was always a plenty ugly building, but one of the great things about it was the lighted sign on the south side that told the world the time and temperature. Very helpful. Very civic-minded.
Here's what Staples has done with that sign:
Not very helpful. Not very civic-minded. Staples is now open? Really? Wow, thanks, that's great. I would have never figured that out. But, hey, by the way, what fucking time is it?!
The clock at the front of the former bank is also not in operation.
This is one of the blocks of Sixth Avenue, by the way, that has been completely denuded of independent, New Yorker-owned businesses. Barnes & Noble, Staples, Supercuts, Starbucks, Duane Reade. Ech. Wretched. Soul-stealing.
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4 comments:
You can't blame Staples for covering that clock: it has been steadily deteriorating for the last 15 years, one bulb burning out at a time. For the past few years there have only been a handful of working lights left in it.
A better question is: why have none of the various tenants in that building done anything about it over the past 15 years?
I can blame them. I do. I am ready to blame corporate American for innumerable things. They have plenty to answer for, in both big and small matters. Staples has tons of money. It would be a good will gesture. Trader Joe's fixed the clock of the bank building they moved into in Brooklyn.
My problem is you said, ". . .but one of the great things about it was the lighted sign on the south side that told the world the time and temperature. Very helpful. Very civic-minded."
That clock hasn't told the time and temperature for ten years. For the last decade it's been a random series of hieroglyphs. If you knew the time you could figure it out by filling in the missing lights, but it hasn't worked for a long time.
You're making it sound like Staples covered up a working sign. They didn't. They covered up something which hasn't worked in years.
Should Staples fix it? Yes. Did they break it? No.
Staples didn't break it, agreed. Staples should fix it, agreed. It's the corporate version of noblesse oblige. Thanks for the comments, Bold!
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