Superman, Grab a Book
Joshua Brustein
September 8, 2012
John Locke a New York resident and
architectural designer spent his Sunday morning transforming an outdated phone
booth into a bookshelf. Ideally,
Sunday morning before eight am is optimal time to make the transformation says
Locke. Last winter he designed a
portable shelving unit that easily fit in New York City’s most common phone
booth. In the last month, Locke
has transformed four booths into bookshelves. The design allows for easy installation being specifically
outfitted hooking over the back of the booth needing no additional setup. What happens after the installation
seems to always be the same, for every one person that stops and looks at the
books another twelve walk by.
Mr.
Locke has been approached by bookstores, publishing houses and even other New
York residents about donating books to these kiosks. Old phone booths are becoming more and more obsolete as time
goes by and this could be a new use for them. Aside from using outdated phone booths as bookshelves, many have
been converted into wi-fi hotspots.
The latest bookshelf on Amsterdam Avenue received mixed
reactions. Less than five minutes
after he left the stand two individuals walked up each leaving with a book of
their own. Not ten minutes later
four men arrived at the booth waited for the all clear and put all the books
into bags and left leaving the shelves empty.
In
my opinion this is a great idea that needs to be pursued further on a larger
scale. I think many people would
support this idea and even donate to the cause. If there was a way to regulate who took what books, or the you
take a book if you leave a book system.
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