vip in the city

Gimme shelter

One of the 3,300 sleek new stainless steel and tempered glass bus shelters being installed as part of the city’s “Coordinated Street Furniture Franchise” contract with Spanish firm Cemusa (“say-moo-sa”):

According to Mediaweek, under the terms of the 20-year agreement, in addition to designing, building, installing and maintaining the new shelters, Cemusa will provide New York City with $999 million in cash and $398 million worth of worldwide ad space, promoting the city as a tourism destination. In return, the company will keep all of the revenue generated by selling the advertising space on its street furniture.

Also as part of the deal, Cemusa will build and sell advertising for 20 freestanding public toilets and 330 newsstands around the city.

The first new bus shelter was installed in late December on Queens Boulevard at 82nd Avenue, near Queens Borough Hall in Kew Gardens. For more images of the design, check out the Cemusa website (.pdf)

Nice work, Grimshaw! (The firm was also tapped to head up the Fulton Street Transfer Center and the Queens Museum of Art explansion project.) A spiffy addition to the city, and way more practical than IKEA’s efforts for New York Design Week 2006.

Small world: seconds after snapping this photo, I randomly crossed paths with PL (again!), racing up Broadway on a mystery mission in the neighborhood.

There's 1 comment so far ... Gimme shelter

Qsoz
July 9, 2007

I’ve been saying “sem-U-S-A” this whole time.

Go for it ...