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Thanks for nothing
By adamg on Thu, 12/31/2015 - 9:07am
Jiaan has long wondered about the big fat nothing indicated by the sign at the 66 bus stop on Harvard Avenue at Comm. Ave. in Allston: What does it mean?
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Did the rollsign on the next 66 bus read Dasein?
Maybe it's an existential bus stop. Maybe it's not really a bus stop. Maybe it is. Maybe it is questioning its existence as a bus stop. Or whether the 66 bus is or not.
The 66 isn't a bus route
It's a lifestyle.
No, it's a television show
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Route_66_(TV_series)
No, A Damn Good TV Show!
Of course, my favorite episode is the Boston one. Complete with North End street scenes and even a few MTA Old Looks making cameos!
Some time back, I recall reading about
a local artist who was posting what he termed "alternative traffic signs" at various locations throughout Boston and Cambridge. Looks like this sign was part of that project.
Can people do that?
Aren't there laws about traffic signs and what can be put up and what can't?
Short answer
Yes. But that hasn't stopped people from trying. My favorite example of sign vigilantisim:
http://magazine.good.is/articles/the-fake-freeway-sign-that-became-a-rea...
Of course they can. But many
Of course they can. But many states have laws that say that road signage that is confusingly similar to "official" signage can be removed by the city/state under the common-law "public nuisance" concept.
Is he back??
When I saw that picture, I thought of the guy who did that great project in the early '90s (is that the one you are thinking of?) I still remember one sign near South Station that read, "You believe in the infinite availability of finite resources." There was a Herald article at the time that quoted DPW workers who had to remove the signs; they admired the excellent and believable renditions that he created. This was before there was an app for everything.
Yes, that is the project
I'm thinking of. And I also remember, and appreciated, the high quality of his work.
Any clues, Roadman?
My googling is coming up cold. Any details that you remember, Roadman? Exact year (my guess would be 1991 or 1992)? Something else to pinpoint an article and artist?
That would be Pat Falco, I
That would be Pat Falco, I believe.
Maybe not.
Looking at Pat Falco's site, the one fake sign work that I saw did not attempt to be confused for something official. His MasArt bio says that he finished in 2010. Sure, maybe he took a gap decade to do something else in the middle before graduating, but the person I'm thinking of was a student in the early 90's.
I've seen that somewhere else
I've seen that somewhere else (not Boston, but I can't remember where). I think it's so they don't have to fit "no stopping, no standing, and don't even think of parking here" on a sign that size.
ALTERNATIVE SIGN DEFENSE
If you get a hundred dollar ticket for parking in a bus stop can you use for your defense that you believed the signs were an artistic expression?
If the 'Nothing" sign was posted
without anything else, you might have a shot. However, the official T bus stop sign mounted with that sign negates that defense.
Years ago there was a signpost in Newtonville with
two signs on it. The top one was a STOP sign. The one immediately below it said "NO STOPPING".
They took it down before I could get a picture, sadly.
Thanks for nothing
Perhaps akin to this?
https://memorialmania.wordpress.com/2011/10/20/hello-world/
To this day, I'm kicking
To this day, I'm kicking myself that I didn't get a photo of the village-limits sign before they took it down. They had put a speed-limit sign on the village-limits-sign post, and either maintenance or vandals had edited it a bit. So for some time the remaining panels read, in order:
VILLAGE OF SHOREWOOD HILLS
Population 1565
RADAR ENFORCED
Clearly
It's answering the question "What is going to go into the space that used to be Kelly's/Marty's?"