East SideRoll-Down Grates as Community Message Boards
This week the City Council passed legislation banning NYC’s ubiquitous roll-down security grates. City Room,the New York Times NYC blog, invited readers to consider whether a more beautiful or useful design for roll-down gates would make them worth preserving.
One idea could be to use the roll-down grate facade as a blank community message board for non-profits and community groups, giving them a public forum to get out public service messages or campaigns. Here’s Upper Green Side’s take:
Before
After
Here, the roll-down grate contains environmentally conscience messages like alerting the public to recycle plastic bags or to remember to turn off a dripping faucet. The concept could also be transferred to the many empty storefronts currently taking hold on every corner of the city. Instead of being seen as the latest encroachment of neighborhood blight , empty storefronts would be transformed into community amenities for all who pass by.
Whether they are used as public message boards or invaluable pieces of public art, these canvasses of the City street-scape deserve some creative consideration before they are legislated out of existence.
