Hmmm… …seems inspired by something familiar…

So! After some ridiculous nonsense, it would appear that the city has taken the problem to heart! (…at least for a little while, I doubt that this installation will last forever- or even all that long!)

It would be great if this installation was permanent (and had the info design cleaned up a little bit.. it reads like: “You are here?” Man, you should know, Mr. tourist info booth!)- or even better: permanently rotated with different tourist info! It would also be fantastic to see similar installations on ALL of the Info-To-Go booths- not just on the only one that has been publicly attacked and criticized!

But still, it seems that the city is acknowledging the problem here, and responding with positive change to my criticism.

I think I can score this one as a win!

So the wankers put the umbrella back up.

The way the beach umbrella was mounted before wasn’t adequate: It was strapped in a half-assed way to the pillar, requiring that the roof be removed, and presenting real safety problems in the high winds that we’ve been having. It was a PROBLEM. Acting quickly, the umbrella was removed, and as you can see, in short order it was re-installed in a much more sturdy and professional manner. PROBLEM SOLVED. After all, H&M was promised a branded beach umbrella- and there were contracts to uphold- money to be lost.

And those other PROBLEMS that the advertising pillar has with its secret life as a tourist information booth? Like the has-never-once-been-functional touch screen? Don’t worry. As you can see, they sent someone around right away to take care of that too. PROBLEM SOLVED. After all, Astral Media has a contract with the city- no, with the people of Toronto themselves- a sacred bond- to provide quality tourist information in exchange for being trusted with the privilege of exploiting our shared streetscape for personal profit.

Original work here.

I didn’t catch a photo in time, but when they undid my repairs to the tourist information stand, they not only replaced the interesting information with uninformative & underfed bikini-clad vixens, but also strapped a full-sized, H & M branded Beach Umbrella to the damn thing. They even took off the roof to accommodate it. I couldn’t take a photo of this “Tourist Station Domination” because I could locate my friggin camera that day. You ever have one of those days? frig. Anyways, by the time I located my camera and returned to the spot, the offending umbrella had been removed- presumably because the high winds we’ve been having made the umbrella a safety risk. Hopefully it was removed preemptively, and nobody had to be hurt for this lesson to be learned.

If anyone caught a photo, I’d love to get ahold of it.

Hey! A real update!

I installed this piece yesterday!

It’s in a so-called “Info-To-Go” Pillar at University and Dundas! Only a few steps from the police station! :0

I wrote in 2008 about these pillars, and the rest of the Coordinated Street Furniture program in general, and that is a good place to go for background on this project, but I’ll get into more detail here about these “Information” Pillars specifically: 120 are due to be rolled out across Toronto- according to the cities website, 28 have been installed thus far.

They are an embarrassment and a shame for Toronto. Toronto is a great city, but we have a bad reputation amongst the rest of our nation. That isn’t anything new. We are thought of as a cold, ugly city obsessed with profit and completely bereft of culture. I live here, I love it here, and I know that image of us just isn’t true- but what other impression will we give to tourists and visitors to our city when we can’t even manage, as a city- the biggest in Canada I’ll remind you, to erect a simple post with tourist information and a map on it without succumbing to the temptation to privatize it and turn it into a profit-making venture? These “Information booths” are strictly billboards first, and tourist information second- and a distant second at that. The pillars are structured and oriented so that the ads get the best visibility and well over double the surface area. In fact, in most cases you would walk right past these ugly streetlevel billboards without ever realizing that it was SUPPOSED to be a tourist information pillar, never suspecting that there was a map tucked into the back, along with map dispensers- and in some cases- interactive touch screens. About those screens- I imagine that no one really ever expected the fancy hi-tech touch screens (How Toronto!) to operate indefinitely, but even I was taken aback when they were installed not working. They didn’t work from DAY ONE. They have NEVER worked. You can go check. Have a look at this booth I improved. The screen is dead. The map dispenser? It’s LED screen scrolls “SOLD OUT” and someone has posted the helpful label “Coming Soon” (Presumably, So you don’t waste your toonie on tourist information that actually won’t ever be coming.) The advertisements, of course, have been operational since the day the pillar has been installed. Like the streetlevel billboards masquerading as phonebooths in New York: As billboards, these pillars always work.

At least the scrolling LEDs at the top of the pillar give the time, right? It’s just too bad that the time displayed is incorrect by an hour.

But what more can we expect when we give the job of providing tourist information to a media giant? These companies are in the business of exploiting public space for profit, not in the business of enhancing
your experience of it for pleasure. They tell tourists what to buy, not where to go for free walking tours.

Toronto is spending tons of money selling itself as a cultural place. Events, promotions, slogans: we are told that we “Live With Culture”- and yet at the same time the city is defeating it all with short-sighted stupid moves like this. Yes, it’s just street furniture. But street furniture has such a huge impact on how our city looks and feels. It shapes it on the ground, it makes the first impression, and it continuously shapes further impressions as we explore the streets and all the sights and sounds that they have to offer.

And if we ever get lost in our explorations, we can always go to the nearest “info to go” pillar and find out what perfume we ought to be wearing.
(As you can see from the nightime shots that.. ah.. reveal which ads I.. harvested in order to make this work [I can't afford all that printing! Plus Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Right?] in this case, that perfume would be Marc Ecko.)

Of course, tourist information pillars should be providing a map and helping the lost AT MINIMUM. They should also provide some information on local lore, landmarks, and legends. So what I’ve done is fix this pillar (something I just couldn’t do with the broken payphones of New York) it is now, at least for the time being, a true tourist information pillar. It currently informs passersby that care to look, in the two official languages, about the nearby Canada Life Building and it’s weather beacon in brief. I hope it shows just a little of the great proud history and culture that we have to offer here in Toronto, and also how a different way is not only possible, but easily achieved. Imagine the rich possibilities if every future “info to go” pillar actually showcased some site-specific local history and knowledge?

If you have trouble visualizing such a thing, visit Dundas and University. But go soon.

As some of you may know…

I’m not a fan of Toronto’s Coordinated Street Furniture Program.

Not. A. Fan.

Last year, I choose it as my Villain for 2008 on Torontoist. I wrote:

“In April of last year, Astral Media beat out competitors CBS Outdoor and Clear Channel Outdoor to land a lucrative twenty-year contract to provide “5,000 transit shelters (2,000 more than currently exist), 12,500 litter/recycling bins, 2,000 benches, 500 multi-box newspaper vending boxes, 120 information pillars, 2,500 postering/neighbourhood information structures (500 pillars, 2,000 pole-and-board type), 20 public washrooms[,] 1,000 bicycle racks,” and 2,000 of these.

Among those in the city who care about public space issues, including but not limited to the Toronto Public Space Committee and Spacing, as well as the “public space zealots” here at Torontoist, the announcement of this deal was a disheartening sign for our city’s future. (Especially since the city’s earlier experiments with private furniture turned out so awfully.)

This year we saw saw the trickling rollout of the promised street furniture, and, unfortunately, from bad planning, to silly mistakes, to city guideline violations, the rollout has done little to assuage our fears.

The disturbing reality of this deal is that it effectively privatizes city infrastructure. True, street furniture is just a small part of the public infrastructure and services that make a city run—but it is a highly visible and impactful part, affecting our life on the street every single day and going a long way to shaping the character of our streets. It helps form not just our own impressions of our city’s personality, but visitors’ ideas about Toronto and its culture as well. Putting our street furniture in the hands of a media giant for the next twenty years ensures that the top priority will be profit.

This is a slow-motion trainwreck for our city. For all our efforts to promote Toronto as a vibrant city, for all the money invested in billing Toronto as a world-class destination and building our cultural attractions, visitors to our fine city will find little evidence to counter our reputation as a cold, soulless, ugly city obsessed with money and completely bereft of culture and charm when, the minute they step out onto our streets, they encounter a privatized streetscape, choked with ads, and prioritized not to be friendly, welcoming, or informative, but to generate revenue.

We may even begin to forget the heartbeat of the city ourselves. Twenty years is a long time to sell our streets.”

…So yeah, these lil’ poster tots are just my way of striking back. Old enemies united in a common cause! Pow, Pow, Pow!

As some of you may know…

I’m not a fan of Toronto’s Coordinated Street Furniture Program.

Not. A. Fan.

Last year, I choose it as my Villain for 2008 on Torontoist. I wrote:

“In April of last year, Astral Media beat out competitors CBS Outdoor and Clear Channel Outdoor to land a lucrative twenty-year contract to provide “5,000 transit shelters (2,000 more than currently exist), 12,500 litter/recycling bins, 2,000 benches, 500 multi-box newspaper vending boxes, 120 information pillars, 2,500 postering/neighbourhood information structures (500 pillars, 2,000 pole-and-board type), 20 public washrooms[,] 1,000 bicycle racks,” and 2,000 of these.

Among those in the city who care about public space issues, including but not limited to the Toronto Public Space Committee and Spacing, as well as the “public space zealots” here at Torontoist, the announcement of this deal was a disheartening sign for our city’s future. (Especially since the city’s earlier experiments with private furniture turned out so awfully.)

This year we saw saw the trickling rollout of the promised street furniture, and, unfortunately, from bad planning, to silly mistakes, to city guideline violations, the rollout has done little to assuage our fears.

The disturbing reality of this deal is that it effectively privatizes city infrastructure. True, street furniture is just a small part of the public infrastructure and services that make a city run—but it is a highly visible and impactful part, affecting our life on the street every single day and going a long way to shaping the character of our streets. It helps form not just our own impressions of our city’s personality, but visitors’ ideas about Toronto and its culture as well. Putting our street furniture in the hands of a media giant for the next twenty years ensures that the top priority will be profit.

This is a slow-motion trainwreck for our city. For all our efforts to promote Toronto as a vibrant city, for all the money invested in billing Toronto as a world-class destination and building our cultural attractions, visitors to our fine city will find little evidence to counter our reputation as a cold, soulless, ugly city obsessed with money and completely bereft of culture and charm when, the minute they step out onto our streets, they encounter a privatized streetscape, choked with ads, and prioritized not to be friendly, welcoming, or informative, but to generate revenue.

We may even begin to forget the heartbeat of the city ourselves. Twenty years is a long time to sell our streets.”

…So yeah, these lil’ poster tots are just my way of striking back. Old enemies united in a common cause! Rrree…. Fwip! Khunk!

I used superglue, but I’m sorry to say that the arrow didn’t stick properly…

To continue quoting:

375 Queen Street West

Here, Tabello says, a fascia sign is being operated under a mural permit by Astral Media. (For the distinction between fascia and mural, and the reason why that distinction is important, read Tabello’s explanation. Titan Outdoor is suing the city because, they argue, making the distinction between fascia and mural signs is unconstitutional.)

Well sir,

Batman is a criminal too.

David Topping at the Torontoist already did such a lovely job explaining these,

I do believe I shall quote him!:

As Tabello notes, the site—now used by Titan—was formerly abandoned by Maxximum Outdoor because the “sign got vandalized on a daily basis….Somebody was even climbing on the roof and cutting the sign down and paint bombing it.” So, really, this is a step up.

You may of heard of Patrick Tribett.

And they say I abuse spraypaint!

Also, If you’re in Toronto, you should read this.

It’s about the Toronto Public Space Committee, A lovable bunch of scoundrels, who, last Tuesday night covered every single one of Astral Media’s “info-to-go” pillars with charming handmade art.

Disturbingly, Astral Media has a contract with the city to install 120 new “info-to-go” pillars, and these new ad displays would be equipped with “security eyes”.

From the Torontoist

So much for the public realm.