Thomas MacMillan Photo
Beatty demonstrates the strength of a new cardboard bench.
While waiting for the city to put in a bus shelter so that people don’t clog the doorway to his office, Zack Beatty took matters into his own hands — he put out a bench for weary commuters take a load off. A cardboard bench. With graffiti encouraged.
The new cardboard couch is a quick crowd-sourced fix to two related problems at the corner of Chapel and State streets downtown.
The first problem is that the corner lacks a shelter or bench for people waiting for the bus.
As a result people sit, stand, and lean anywhere they can, which leads to the second problem: Beatty and his co-workers at SeeClickFix’s world headquarters at 746 Chapel often find their way into and out of work blocked by people sitting or standing on their stoop.
Beatty, who’s in charge of media partnerships at SeeClickFix, said he had a cup of hot coffee spilled on him in July while trying to enter the office amid a group of strap-hangers waiting for their bus.
He opened up a “ticket” on SeeClickFix—the website that allows neighbors to lodge complaints and suggest improvements around town — registering the need for a bus shelter. It was the second ticket this summer about the corner. SeeClickFix founder Ben Berkowitz put up one on June 1: “Exit blocked by bus patrons.”
The city acknowledged both tickets and has budgeted money for a new shelter there in the current fiscal year, according to city spokeswoman Elizabeth Benton. She said she doesn’t know when it will be installed.
In the meantime, Berkowitz suggested buying a bench and putting it out for people to sit on. He set up a PayPal account for people to contribute.
Almost immediately, Beatty (pictured) and four others kicked in about $23 each, enough to buy a bench from Chairigami, the local cardboard-furniture startup that’s celebrating its first year of business.
After people from Chairigami walked the bench down from their new store at 976 Chapel St., Beatty and Berkowitz were faced with a number of dilemmas. Would the bench get stolen? Would it get tagged or vandalized? Would it hold up in the rain?
“Let’s just put it out there,” Beatty said they decided. The choice was to “err on the side of trusting the community.”
Figuring the carboard surface would be a magnet for taggers, Beatty and Berkowitz opted to guide the graffit rather than try to prevent it. They attached a red Sharpie marker to the bench and Beatty came up with a question they wrote in big letters on the benhc back: “What are you waiting for?”
It’s a question that’s literally appropriate for people waiting for a bus, but one that is also open to larger interpretation, Beatty said.
In the 15 days the bench has been out, people have written all sorts of stuff on the bench, Beatty said. He’s had to replace the Sharpie a couple of times.
Staffers at SeeClickFix have been taking the bench in at night and when it’s raining. The seat is coated with a kind of varnish; the rest of the bench is untreated cardboard that could easily soak up moisture.
On Wednesday morning, Beatty pulled out the bench and received what he said has become the normal reaction from people waiting for the bus: Can I sit on that? Beatty assured them they could.
Beatty pointed out the couple of dozen people standing on the sidewalk or leaning against the building. One woman was perched on a narrow brick windowsill outside the post office. “That can’t be comfortable,” Beatty said.
“It’s perfect,” said Larry Restrepo (pictured), who took a seat on the bench with Zulma Huerta and 3‑year-old Jairo Restrepo. He said he was waiting for the D bus to take him to his job at Wendy’s in Guilford. He said he’s at the bus stop every day, on his feet. The bus stop is very heavily used, by “everyone in Fair Haven,” Restrepo said.
“It’s better than standing,” he said of the bench.
“That’s pretty neat,” said Bill Laden, also waiting for the D bus. “I’m homeless. I get tired of walking all day. … The only thing is, is it going to stand up to the weather?”
“I think it’s nice, especially for the elderly,” said James Gore. He made his observations while standing in the doorway that leads to the SeeClickFix office, proving that the bench is not a total solution.
Beatty said the cardboard bench is more of a short-term fix while waiting for a permanent solution: a bus shelter.
“It is in violation of city ordinance,” Benton said of the bench. She said that while the city appreciates the spirit behind the addition of a cardboard bench for people waiting for the bus, municipal law forbids placing furniture in the city right-of-way, she said.
Benton said workers from the Department of Public Works would take a look at the bench on Thursday and see if it needs to be removed.