Portrait of a Newsstand, Old School

This lonely beaut on Seventh Avenue near 52nd deserves not to be Cemusa-ized. Where else can you get both cigarettes and cigrarttes?

Cemusa Gets Another One

As recently as two weeks ago, there was a find old New York newsstand here at the northwest corner of 79th and Broadway. Now: gone. The construction can only mean one thing: Cemusa.

And the clueless Spanish company is still mangling New York street names on their bus shelters.

Cemusa Still Finding Ways to Suck

Bowery Street?

Cemusa Cleans Up Its Act

Thanks to Sybil Cuma, who wrote to me today to say that, following my Sunday, July 27, attack on the filthy state of a Columbia Street Cemusa bus shelter, "On Monday night Cemusa sent their cleaning contractor Shelter Express to clean the Columbia Street bus shelters—and they did a pretty good job. Then I noticed on Tuesday that Shelter Express was back again with lots of cleaning trucks. They spent hours cleaning and polishing the bus shelters. They were spotless after they were finished."

See the picture above, taken today, compared to the one below, taken July 26. Quite a difference. They even cleaned the glass roof. Now, I know I'm jumping to conclusions thinking Cemusa acted after seeing my post (which was helpfully picked up by good folks at Curbed, Queens Crap and City Desk), but, Hell, I'm feeling kinda low today, so I'm taking full credit! Lost City spoke and Cemusa jumped! Power to the bloggers!

I still hate their bus shelters, though.

Cemusa: Beautifying Our City

Whose responsibility is the upkeep of the City's new bus shelters? I know the Spanish company Cemusa put them here, winning the right to do so after stuffing a billion or so into Mayor Mike Success-o-Manic City Hall. But what happens after they've been propped up and slapped silly with ads? Is the City supposed to give 'em a hose-down every now and then? Is Cemusa supposed to fly over task forces once a week?

I ask this after sitting recently in a bus shelter on Columbia Street, Brooklyn, waiting (and waiting and waiting) for the B61. The glass walls were filthy. They looked like they hadn't been cleaned in weeks. Pieces of tape remained stuck to some panels where flyers had once been posted. Dirt and debris had fallen on the translucent ceiling.


You can't tell from looking at this armrest (below), but it's loose. I give it another two weeks before it falls off or is ripped off. I knew when I saw these slick pieces of goods go up that they were the products of flashy design, but shoddy craftmanship.


And some more complaints while I'm at it: who decides what goes where on these ugly ad boxes. Here's a window on the side taken up by a piece of white paper that says "MTA." Very informative. Why not put a bus schedule there instead? Wouldn't that be useful?

And when the big panel of a Cemusa shelter isn't taken up by a paid ad for a movie or IKEA or something, why must it be occupied by an ad for Cemusa instructing people where to call to advertise? I'm sure if a business really wants to paste its ads on a Cemusa shelter, they'll know who to call. They're figure it out. In the meantime, can't the space be used in a less repulsive way? Just a thought.

Some Stuff That's Interesting

A like a girl who likes old menus.

Grimaldi's learned it had to pay its taxes and stayed open. Thank God.

Some nice old records will go to Syracuse University.

Some good ways to stick it to Cemusa.

And, of course, the MTA sucks.

Cemusa Hasn't Gotten This One Yet

Soulful newsstands still live in NYC. For now.

A Good (Old) Newsstand

Now, there's a beauty!

I ask you: what is wrong with this newsstand? It's pleasing in shape and appearance, blends in with Central Park behind it, you can go inside, it's open 24 hours and it's got an ATM! It's a masterpiece! And you know what? I bet the lock works and it doesn't leak. Why would you want to replace it with one of those Cemusa crap jobs? Why I ask you? Oh, I know why. Because there's no place to advertise on this one!

Newsstand Owners Think Cemusa Sucks Too

Guess what? That Spanish maker of "street furniture" that has defiled our city with their anonymous, ad-filled excuses for bus shelters and newsstands? You know, Cemusa? Not only are their products ugly, but they don't work so well.

The New York Post reports that the structures leak on the newspapers and magazines and that the locks are difficult to use. And Cemusa isn't keeping up with the complaints. Small wonder: they're in Spain! Also, after paying the City $1 billion for the rights to the newsstand and shelter franchise, I doubt the company was very interested in investing more money in quality structures.

You can bet this wouldn't have happened it newsstand owners were allowed to keep their old spaces. Since they owned them, they had a vested interest in keeping them safe and in good condition. Cemusa could care less if the newsstands actually stay open, as long as they can advertise on the side of them.

To top it off, Cemusa lies. They said in a written statement, "We will continue to inspect each newsstand on a daily basis." But none of the newsstand operators interviewed by The Post said Cemusa conducts daily inspections.

In other news, the first Cemusa public toilet was installed in Madison Park. I betcha it's closed up for repairs within three months. Newsstands don't require much smarts to build, but a toilet involves plumbing, meaning skill is involved.

Why Cemusa Sucks

All this time while the Spanish glass-and-metal boys Cemusa were zapping street corners with the new bus shelters and newsstands—part of a contract that Mike's City Hall accepted a shitload of money for—it never occurred to me to visit the company's website. But today I did, and now I know why Cemusa is bad for New York.

Why? Because they don't care about New York City, what it is, what it's made of, what the environment is like here. If they did, they wouldn't have given us the same damn shelters and newsstands they gave Spain?

The "street furniture" (awful term) was designed by the Dickensian-sounding Grimshaw Industrial Design. Check out the website and look under "Projects" and then "Full Project List," and click on the Spain street furniture images and then the New York street furniture images. They structures are almost identical. And since the Spain stuff was in place first, one gets the feeling that Cemusa and Grimshaw have just unloaded their stale Spanish leftovers on The Big Apple, which no consideration that our City might deserve its own particular, site-appropriate shelters and newsstands. No, we're just part of the lousy old Global Village, right? so we can take on the same things Madrid did.

Unspecial. Unoriginal. Anti-individualistic. Cemusa and Grimshaw's work is everything New York is not, and should not be.

Cemusa Mushrooms

Those Cemusa bus shelter/newsstand people strike like lightning.

Last Thursday night I was waiting for the (loathsome) B61 bus at around 7 PM. There was no bus shelter there, just a pole with a MTA sign on top as usual. The next night at the same time, I arrived at the bus stop and the above structure was in place. Just like a mushroom, it grew overnight, only needing a bench and the netting to be cleared away for it to be complete. Wham!

Does Cemusa put these things in so quickly because they pride themselves on efficiency? Or do they want to deflect criticism by driving the stakes in so fast no one has time to cry "stop!"? (A Robert Moses stratagem.)

I was OK with these bus shelters at first. They were sleek and quasi-European. And they gave you a place to sit down. But now that there are three or four of them on Atlantic, it's starting to dawn on me what the City will look like when Cemusa has taken over. "Bladerunner," anyone?

News Stand

There's been a lot of talk recently about those sleek new Cemusa newsstands and whether of not they're good for New York.

Just wanted to go on the record that the above is my ideal of a New York City newsstand: A brown shack that spills a little onto the sidewalk, with the words "News Stand" hand-painted in yellow on three sides (in different fonts, no less). No mistaking this structure for a silvery time machine or a space module that might blast off at any minute.