Community Advertising

Our public spaces  are inundated with Commercial  Advertising trying to sell us something.

Ad at 42nd Street and 8th Ave link

But what's rarely found is Community Advertising, the use of our public spaces to alert us to important information about the neighborhoods we live in.


An exception to this is in some of our  BID's

Flatiron Bid cart, offers maps of the BID plus a view of the BID(right)

. The 34th Street Partnership Business Improvement District, shows an example using a city  lamppost to  inform passersby of community information.

34th Street Partnership Visitors Information

The concept of  placing the ParkChelsea map on public property  is an example of adding this type of neighborhood functionality  to an area outside of our city's BID;'s.

ParkChelsea map posted on a NYC street pole

 The ParkChelsea map shown above is laminated to make it waterproof and can be added to city property at a small fraction of the cost of building a custom structure as in the case of the 34th Street Partnership BID's custom build post structure.

Seen here a Community Advertising  "Totem Pole"  with sample flyers for (from top)  Attractions and Community Resources,    Age Friendly Grocery Guide, Age-Friendly Businesses.

map is laminated then attached to corrugated plastic backing which is attached by plastic cable ties to a parking sign pole

Getting permission to post on City Street Property 

NYC Administrative law  §  10-119   states...
  Posting.  a.  It shall be unlawful for any person to paste,
  post, paint, print, nail or attach or affix by any means whatsoever  any
  handbill,  poster, ...   bench,  traffic  barrier,  hydrant,  public  pay telephone, any personal
  property maintained on  a  city  street  or  other  city-owned  property
  ..., however, that this section   shall  not  apply  to any handbill, poster, notice, sign, advertisement,   sticker or other printed material so posted by or under the direction of
  the council, or by or  under  the  direction  of  any  city  agency... link

What this law  means is that private citizens cannot normally  post on NYC property, and  those that have are subject to big fines . However  NYC agencies can and so can any  organization given permission to do so by the City Council.

ParkChelsea will be discussing this law with city council members, city agencies and  community boards to discuss if it can be used to allow council members and community boards to post Community Advertisements on our city streets. If so then in the future you can expect to see material like this posted legally  on our city streets:

Recently this NYC Police flyer was posted in Chelsea

Due to a lack of legitimate community bulletin board spaces it was posted as above, and below

by adding a community bulletin board poster function to this pole, the needs of our community could be better served