1999 TIMES SQUARE NEWSSTANDS PROJECT

In 1999 I came up with a project to create murals on a variety of newsstands around the Times Square area. At that time the newsstands were little more than rundown shacks though various city administrations tried to get "street furniture" passed they didn't until years later under Bloomberg. My idea was to employ high school students. I would teach them the process from creating maquetes to applying the designs on to the surfaces. The newsstands murals would only be there for about six months after which they would be repainted.

I went to the Times Square Business District offices with the proposal. They approved of it and I set about interviewing interested students at a local high school. (I'm writing this by memory now and will dig through my files for the actual proposal.) The original idea was to paint eight newsstands but ended up being three. I hired three girls and three boys. The girls all took themselves out of the process after a couple of weeks. The crew ended up being four boys.

Here are some of the photographs. I will continue to update this at a later date.

The maquetes of the three proposed newsstands.