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Cemusa, the Spanish company that won a $1 billion contract to install new newsstands, bus stops and other street furniture throughout this fair city, hasn’t exactly impressed newsstand owners, some of whom are out of business for a month or longer while the company removes their old stand and puts in the new version (pictured). Previously, owners have complained that the roofs on the new stands leak and the locks are defective; now another problem is that some of the new structures are 9 inches shorter than promised – which is no trifle considering the tight quarters they have to deal with. The whole thing makes one wonder if the government's habit of outsourcing to private contractors is somehow flawed!
Newsstand Owners Can't Stand New Newsstands
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IN THE FUTURE NEWSTANDS WILL BE BLUE AND SEMI-TRANSLUCENT!
The whole thing makes one wonder if the government's habit of outsourcing to private contractors is somehow flawed
I don't imagine it would have been amazing had the city tried to create a department to design and build the structures themselves.
What was wrong with the old ones?
9" shorter, that's about right for bloomberg's admin.
It's Cemusa, not Cesuma. The link to the company's website is similarly incorrect.
If the govt didn't outsource, those newstands would have taken 3 years to build rather than "a month or longer."
It looks like there were a bunch of problems with this whole thing, from using a company that's located across the Atlantic instead of a local firm to not consulting with newsstand owners to begin with. How hard would it have been to go around to a few and ask, "What kind of improvements would you like to see in the new newsstands?" Don't they think the people who actually work in them might actually have some firsthand experience and insight that might be useful? Cemusa also emphasizes esthetics over and over on their website but never once mentions durability or function. I don't think they have any engineers on their staff. Assuming you could find their staff. They have no company address on their website, just a phone number. It's probably just a lone sales associate with a 646 area code for their advertising.
Just looking at that picture, I can immediately see that it just will not work. Most newsstands are packed to the gills with magazines, and they only provide two racks in these new ones? What a joke. That's what happens when you let people who have never even been in a newsstand design one from the ground up.
Security-wise, think about how rarely these cheesy newstands might get jacked in Spain. in NYC, you know what will happen. Spirit of '76 is right: Cemusa should have worked closely with newstand owners and users to devise something more durable and street-worthy than this "Barbie's Dream Newstand".
They are quite ugly and impractical.
Something that would evoke the old IRT subway kiosks (see Astor Place and the Boro Hall elevator) would probably fit in better.
why outsource...
NYC has some pretty impressive universities. Why not go cheap and use the young minds that reside in this city. or did somebody get a kick back.
just makes you think socialism in a perfect world is just so right.
Someone should come up with a mini-mini mart/newstand, franchise (maybe get 7-11 on board) and install these types of stands in downtowns all across the country. I see an opportunity here folks!
You could sell everything from slurpees to vogue, jerky to timeout, it could work.
The city of new york employs arch. and eng.
form above fuction sucks.
outsourcing is the cause of many a bad idea.
the design compitition in LOCAL univsities is another great idea.
think local is another good idea. I feel very bad about this.
Somewhere in Springfield, Apu is laughing at us.