New York Gets Decent Street Furniture
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto 
on 05.30.07
Apartment Therapy notes that new bus stops and news stands are popping up all over New York. Cemusa, a Spanish outdoor firm, is installing the first of 3500 bus shelters, 330 news stands, and 20 public toilets in a billion dollar contract that is the culmination of a process that started in 2002. They are designed by Nicholas Grimshaw Architects, made from "95% recyclable materials" and are not yet scratchittied into eyesores like Toronto's,.
Well designed amenities like bus stops and news stands make the public spaces more comfortable (certainly a clean public washroom does) and public services like transit easier to use. Too bad the price is always more advertising in the public realm.
Grimshaw even makes a public toilet look good. They are the jazzy new kind that are self cleaning:
"These state-of-the-art facilities offer comfort, hygiene, accessibility, and security to the public, within a modern design. Designed to self-sanitize after each use, the APTs will also be serviced twice a day for inspection and system maintenance, affording the people of New York a safe and valuable convenience." ::Apartment Therapy
Read how Toronto screwed it up on ::Spacing Wire
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