Seattle Times Newspaper vending boxes
The PI warehouse in South Lake Union stores most of Seattle’s newspaper vending stands. With newspapers running out of business these vending stands either get repainted thus rebranded by the surviving newspapers; or get the eyes of junkies like us who use them as beer coolers. Is there a better use for this object that had a significant role in spreading information to the public. One would argue that these clunky boxes ate up the news boys from the early centuries and this is how media changes. Well, true! But what is this movement doing to the quality of literature on the street? Would you rather see that vacant space being used for more apartment rental booklets and worthless booklets that are hardly read. I dont read rental booklets. I internet that sh!t.
It started with a bunch of us from LMN Architects thinking about a proposal for the AIA Seattle’s Forum Magazine: Renewable City Call for Ideas [http://www.greatcity.org/2010/04/22/aia-seattles-forum-magazine-renewable-city-call-for-ideas/]
seeking illustrated ideas that repurpose or rethink underused or vacant spaces of all kinds for its upcoming issue, “Coming Out of the Curve.”
We looked at a bunch of spaces right from alleys in the city to suburban parking lots. What caught most of our interest was empty newspaper stands around the city. They occupy prime real estate and get the most pedestrian traffic around them. A perfect locale to affect the ecology. Seattle city has 30000 newspaper boxes on the streets. The PI going out of business has left around 700 of those empty boxes vacant. A pessimistic mind would see great benefits with the loss of print media. The clunky boxes getting replaced by interactive devices the run on alternative energy source and give networking a physical dimension. Although the idea has some great potentials lets reserve it to a day the city has enough money to spend on improving our streets. I like to follow trends. That green stuff. Also finding a new use for the boxes would cost less to make, test and implement.
On March 16, 2009 Hearst Corporation, one of the nations largest media organization announced that it would stop publishing Seattle PI, the oldest newspaper from the city. After a 146 year run the newspaper continues to have its editions online.
