Garden in Transit, or What’s With The Flowers On The Taxis?
The Garden in Transit information campaign behind this wasn’t all that great, which is why the Times was able to have some fun with why there are flowers on all the cabs now.
But it’s actually for the children, in honor of the 100th anniversary of New York’s first metered taxi. From the slightly extremely hippydippy press release:
“Garden in Transit” will be one of this City’s largest volunteer projects and expansive public exhibitions. Under Mayor Bloomberg’s leadership, the City has welcomed public art and events that encourage New Yorkers and visitors alike to come together and re-imagine public spaces throughout the five boroughs. From free concerts in city parks to Greenmarkets to temporary public art, ranging from displays in City Hall Park to Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s “The Gates,” there has been an unprecedented revival in major public art events as a means to bring New Yorkers together.
“This wonderful and whimsical roaming exhibit underscores this Administration’s enthusiasm for and commitment to public art,” said Cultural Affairs Commissioner Kate Levin. “It is also a terrific way to engage New Yorkers in helping to make the City more beautiful, inviting, and inspiring for everyone.”…
…TAXI 07, a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the metered taxicab led by the non-profit group Design Trust for Public Space in collaboration with the TLC, will include an exhibition of a prototypical taxicab of the future at the 2007 New York Auto Show, as well as other events and efforts designed to emphasize and enhance the taxicab’s functional role in urban life.
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November 1st, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Grrr. These are lame. Why does the city persist in fucking with a perfectly good and distinctive, recognizable system of iconography?
November 1st, 2007 at 1:40 pm
The idea is a good one, but the execution is crap. Still, it’s not like they’re around for long. Another month, and then it’s another thing that merely happened.
Public art is often ill-conceived or garish (I gotta say, I fucking hated Christo’s gates), but seeing as it’s almost half-over, I’m willing to give them a C based on effort.
November 1st, 2007 at 1:55 pm
I actually really liked the gates, but yeah, most public art is teh suxx0rs.
I just thought the “lets-hold-hands-and-gas-prices-will-go-down-taxis-will-start-picking-up-black-people-and-you-can-actually-get-a-cab-to-Queens” mentality (okay, perhaps I overstate just a bit in the press release was fuzzy-headed and eminently mockable. And kids are empowered by filling in the colors for something that someone else designed? Stay within the lines, kids, and maybe the taxi will stay within its lane and not careen over the curb or run down a lady in a wheelchair!
November 1st, 2007 at 1:58 pm
whoa, bad typoing.
Sted:
I just thought the “lets-hold-hands-and-gas-prices-will-go-down and taxis-will-start-picking-up-black-people and-you-can-actually-get-a-cab-to-Queens†mentality (okay, perhaps I overstate just a bit) in the press release was fuzzy-headed and eminently mockable.
November 1st, 2007 at 2:01 pm
Agreed, and post duly edited to reflect same.
November 1st, 2007 at 4:12 pm
And all along I thought that was one really poorly disguised taxi following me around.