thoughtcrumbs

Information overload: NYC street signs

In this week's New Yorker, Adam Gopnik censures the New York Department of Transportation for imposing a massive blight on the city: a thousand large-print street signs. And he makes a surprisingly good case for their removal, with only a dash of metropolitan snobbery:

Unlike Los Angeles, where every corner looks the same, and high-speed drivers need plenty of warning, New York's streets are architecturally unique. Each avenue is instantly recognizable. So, the new signs:

"do more than contribute to the ongoing homogenization, the Americanization, of New York. They imply that the homogenization has already taken place."

And, aesthetically,

"They eclipse, as décor, the jaunty, jazz-era syncopation of the classic New York street-corner sign pair, each sign gesturing toward its own street, but with the two at slightly different levels, so that they have a happy, semaphoric panache."

Of course, the target audience for these signs isn't native New Yorkers, and Gopnik pretty much loses any sympathy he might have had from the usability crowd with these tongue-in-cheek last words:

"New York is not a hard place to get around in. If you don't know where you are, you don't deserve to be here."