It’s 4 a.m. You are tired and still a little drunk at Union Square, only to see “L 8TH AVE 23 MINUTES,” in garish green and orange LEDs. You sigh, feeling somehow laughed at, the subject of a sick joke. You’re sure they place those wait-time signs just out of pre-swipe view on purpose. You mentally curse the MTA.
The guys at Newmindspace feel you, and they’re doing something about it. After bringing us Santacon and the Union Square pillow fights, these “urban bliss disseminators” descended on several of these LED station-blemishes with “Spoiler Alert” signs, which actually look fabulously real.
Jason Eppink of Newmindspace explains that the injustice of the wait-time signs lies in their potential to “raise false hopes,” and “erase the mystery and magic of the wondrous system that transports more than five million riders a day.”
Indeed, the mystery is gone, and with it are the longing, down-tunnel gazes: “These LED signs also threaten historical social behaviors, rendering obsolete the time-honored New York tradition of leaning over the platform edge with the hope of glimpsing headlights from an approaching train.”
There you have it. May the spirit of adventure always be preserved, and may more webjargon seep into our offline lives.
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