What do you see when you stand by a LinkNYC machine for about 12 minutes, as 51 screens blink by? As consistent with my survey of LinkNYC’s advertising inventory from last month (it’s at the bottom of that story) you don’t see a whole lot of ads. On this day I saw one ad, repeated twice, for Google Pixel 4. That ad seems to assume everyone knows exactly what the hell the Pixel 4 is. One ad for the Lottery and another for Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood closes out the advertising inventory for this particular screen.
Also in the rotation: One completely blank screen.
A confusing-to-me announcement of “Turkey Bowl Football Games” this weekend at the Al Oerter Rec Center in Queens appeared. Sure, I could look it up, but in normal life I would not be standing there taking a picture of that screen, which I would likely have been unable to mentally digest before it disappeared.
A bunch of #artonlink, a bunch of NYC Quotes, some Subway Status screens useful if you are either lucky enough to be present for the full 15 seconds during which it appears, or else you are lucky enough to have a camera at the ready so you can take a picture of the screen, then study its content at your leisure.
Also a bunch of #LinkNYCfacts (now curated by LoCALIZE, btw, not LinkNYC). One “Historic NYC” screen that directs us to the old Standard Motor Products Building. A couple of ads for NYC.gov initiatives, screens which are most likely not paid advertisements and thus not included in my total of
The last screen ends with a puzzling claim that “Queens Plaza North” is, itself a museum and/or gallery. The address, 29-27 QPN, is that of the Clocktower building, a structure presently seeing its profile diminished considerably as a 70-story tower rises up next to it. If there is gallery space inside the building that’s news to me, and I’m glad to know of it. Or maybe the Clocktower building itself, a landmarked structure, is considered a museum piece? I don’t know but with the hurricane of construction noise and jackhammers raging the Clocktower that are it does not seem like a destination at this particular time.