Rocket Talk: Can Sunday Subway Service Start Sooner?
Newsstand: November 19, 2009
Gender Studies Coming to a High School Near You
Please Insert Station and Try Again
The Art of Not Knowing
When we tried out the bench prototype at the street furniture unveiling at City Hall in June, it was one of the few items we were pretty much okay with. But because Astral Media can't do anything right (when it comes to street furniture and billboards, anyway—their other divisions seem to be functioning relatively well), they've managed to screw this up, too.
No sooner had the benches started appearing than complaints about their awkward placement began to surface. In the comments of Spacing, Geoffrey wrote that "Roncesvalles got a nice new bench/barcalounger south of Garden Av that manages to make the sidewalk all the more difficult to navigate past the pinch point the old style bus shelter and vegetable stores present." Joe Clark posted a couple shots of a recent installation in the Beach(es), observing that it's "Too far from the curb." (We like Russell McG's comment, too.)
We snapped the above pic on a Friday night at the northwest corner of Bloor and Palmerston. The bench has been installed in the place where these Koreatown businesses put out their garbage for collection.
Add to that the fact that the stainless steel frame and armrests get cold (and, at other times of year, will likely get hot), and we'd say this is pretty much par for the course for AMO and Jeremy Kramer.
Five hundred of these behemoths are supposed to go in by year's end.
Photos by Jonathan Goldsbie. Goldsbie is a campaigner with the Toronto Public Space Committee.
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maybe also! evil brands and corporations will engrave their logos into the hot, hot metal armrests so that they can burn their messaging into the arms of innocent pedestrians sitting in the sun!
...hah.
>But because Astral Media can't do anything right (when it comes to street furniture and billboards, anyway—their other divisions seem to be functioning relatively well), they've managed to screw this up, too.
You're talking about a company that has had 12 years of strong growth INCLUDING their outdoor division.
I take it you were the business mastermind behind Torontoist?
Posts like this are exactly why Torontoist has failed, city issue "reporting" doled out to a radical and deranged special interest group. I'm sad to see this blog go but not all that surprised given the inability of the editor to recruit contributors outside of the narrow spacing/anti-advertising/font nerd set.
To be fair, torontothegreat, being profitable and doing the right thing(s) are not necessarily analogous. X ≠ Y. Plenty of profitable things suck, and plenty of unprofitable things don't.
the phrase was "can't do anything right"
Their quite impressive and incredible corporate track record completely negates that statement.
And neither one of you have any expertise or experience in either realm, therefore you're speaking to deaf ears -- To be fair of course.
Just to add.
You guys keep picking up on these 'operational' type of blights. Which is fine you have every right to (even though you make no mention when they fix them, a bit dubious IMHO).
Just keep something in perspective. You are unable to properly run a blog with a prospective staff of about what, 10 people? Mostly volunteers?
Imagine running a 'division' with over 500 employees?
Shit happens. It doesn't make the entire project an 'utter failure' cause they happened to put a bench in front of a restaurant where they normally put the garbage or placed one backwards.
Hyperbole to the nth degree and not even used in a reasonable fashion. I totally agree with x_the_x.
You made your bed, I hope you have a great sleep!
it looks like there's enough room to sleep on that stinky bench. [another selling point?]
Just to correct your numbers, torontothegreat, because you aren't so good at paying attention to stuff: Torontoist has forty staff members, almost all of whom are paid per article—though not, say, anywhere near the kind of money that goes into the salaries that Astral's employees make to do their jobs correctly. The suggestion that we shouldn't criticize a company for their mediocrity because we, a company in a completely different field, are on the verge of shutting down, doesn't make any sense: you don't have to be a musician (or a rich one) to know when music totally sucks—the same reason you feel entitled to criticize us.
Anyway, "Hyperbole to the nth degree and not even used in a reasonable fashion" is exactly this or this, which are both so obviously off-mark that they don't warrant any attention other than to totally dismiss them.
And besides, to quote you from a month ago: "Those bathroom are (IMHO) one of the stupidest ideas of Astral's yet. And Astral has a lot of stupid ideas."
Listen, I get it, torontothegreat: you don't very much like Torontoist or Jonathan or me, to the point where you will intentionally disagree with yourself so that you can also disagree with us. It doesn't bother me much, and I wouldn't worry about what we'll do next. I'd worry about what you'll do during the days now that you'll have nowhere to practice being contrarian.
torontothegreat: That alleged "impressive and incredible corporate track record" would be more impressive and credible if it weren't so obviously accomplished by ignoring relevant laws.
reetdoontoon: I've seen one in person, and it looks like the immovable centre armrest would be a challenge.
I'm glad to see some of these comments. When I first read "can't do anything right," I wondered if it meant that Astral is so bad that everything it does is not-good... like some Platonic logic that nothing good can come from that which is 'bad.' Or if this phrase meant that no matter what Astral does with this furniture everyone will find fault with it. The latter is something I tend to agree with. I'm personally annoyed with this sentiment in which no matter what it is (TTC service improvements, new street furniture, new architecture, art events) it is immediately dubious, an error, or outright evil (!). In any case, I suppose I'm wondering could possibly live up to the expectations.
There's always room for critique, but it becomes rather banal when it's all that's served.
That's what happens when you trust a company who's only business is advertising to deliver public goods. It's done rather poorly. These faults are major.
The bench in front of Ka Chi (Bloor at Palmerston) has been there for a month or so. I thought it looked a big far from the curb too, but now I think it was intentional: Garbage collection is obvious enough, but you'd probably complain if you found a bench buried in the snow bank too.
x_the_x: Are you saying nobody with a different perspective applied in all the hiring windows over the years, or that David rejected their applications because of their alternative perspectives?
I was thinking the same thing - maybe it's far from the curb for snow removal. So long as the rest of the sidewalk is accessible, especially for those in wheelchairs, (and the photo above seems to be, not the "pinch point" mentioned though), then I'm fine with it where it is.
People don't sit on benches... IN WINTER.
re: Are you saying nobody with a different perspective applied in all the hiring windows over the years, or that David rejected their applications because of their alternative perspectives?
As you know, I'm not privy to either of these hypothetical decisions. I was just repeating my often-made complaint that turning over this page's content to an axe-grinding interest group (and, separately, a fringe political party) wasn't a great idea.
Since I'm here and you've raised it, the contributors on this page with almost no exceptions ranged between the far left and the soft left (and attracted a like-minded audience, for the most part, trolls excluded). I don't know how it came to be that way, but I can speak to the results as a reader. If you look at other pages on the network, the content range is much broader as are the commentators it attracts. I don't know if it adds up to more eyeballs for advertisers, but its a theory I'm willing to conjecture.