"You are correct, the kiosks in the photos were installed in late 2009. The management, leasing and upkeep of the kiosks is handled by a contract that the City of Atlanta has with General Growth Properties a retail/mall management company. The program has had some challenges and is currently being debated by City Council about how to proceed."
Atlanta's 1996 Olympic kiosks are still here. As pretty as they are, I wish we could find them a nice home, somewhere else.
I don't spend much blog time complaining. I hope you'll excuse me this time.
Here we are at Peachtree Street and Ellis Street looking north. I walk past here 4 times a week. It's pretty, it's well kept, it's solid and sturdy. It's blocking the sidewalk and blocking my view.
Is it open? No, but you certainly can't tell from here. Is there someone on the other side waiting to mug or panhandle me? You can't tell from here.
Is it scaled for human comfort? I think it mocks puny humans.
Can I see all the wonderful Peachtree sidewalk life? No. Can I see the zen view all the way through SONO to Midtown? No. Can I see the parade coming, or going?
It's a bad experience for the operator: She can't see north, she can't see south, she can see east. She has a narrow field of view facing a wall. Potential customer whiz by; they don't even know your are open until they are right there.
It's a bad experience for the customer: You can't tell it's open. You don't comfortably approach a person from a distance. You go from not seeing the operator to seeing him for the first time from a few feet away.
It's a bad experience for the pedestrians.
I am not against street vendors or kiosks. This one is a few few blocks north.
No explanation needed.
Let's re-purpose the kiosks and and find them a nice home somewhere else.
Let's find a way to liberate Peachtree. And let's hold in those tummies while we're at it.
Great post -- that kiosk at Ellis is awful, along with the one almost directly across Peachtree at the MARTA entrance. They're built at the worst possible places and, as you say, make it difficult to pass or see around them. They need to go.
ReplyDeleteI like the ones at Five Points plaza and Woodruff Park, though (except for the one on the Peachtree Street side of Woodruff Park that's kinda hard to pass). And there's one on Broad Street with a cupcake vendor on the weekdays and that's nice. All of those are built in sensible places. They don't block the view and you can pass around them easily.
That Streatery hotdog stand is great, BTW. I recommend it.
Agreed. The MARTA Peachtree Center kiosk is a pedestrian traffic choke point. Who on earth though this would be a good place to put it -- as opposed to even just 20 feet North away from the Ga.-Pacific iron fence?
ReplyDeleteThat said -- I've aways though it (kiosks) would be great for a Tiny library !
Perry, I think there is a place for them, even a bus stop. They need to be more open, so you could see in and see out on all sides.
DeleteHi Terry, I'm objecting more about the placement of this particular one as a pedestrian traffic obstacle. I don't recall walking past it during the Olympics, but it must have been like the mall at Christmas.
DeleteSo, that's what it is. Something about those just always seemed off. Someone who's never walked past it before has no idea what it is, because there's no view in or out from the sides. The scale seems OK, but you'd have no reason, from a distance, to expect that it's anything other than a four-sided brick of ads that someone inexplicably decided to put a roof on. At the very best, it looks like a sheltered bus stop.
ReplyDeleteIt would be a nice bus stop if it was more open and if it was somewhere else.
ReplyDeleteWho can I contact about these Terry?
DeleteI love Atlanta and enjoy reading your posts. I agree the kiosks look nice . . . elsewhere.
ReplyDelete