Big Lights, Center City
A gaggle of futuristic digital signage might soon be its their way to Center City.
Catalyst Outdoors has drafted legislation that would create a “digital district” of “urban experiential displays,” or UEDs. This is, as close as I can guess, fancy developer-speak for “really fancy 3D billboards.” Natalie Kostelni, Catalyst rep, cheerily informed press late last week that the signs would communicate news, public service announcements, and advertising – mostly the latter.
Insert your own “Days of Our Lives” joke here: an artist’s rendering of a Market Street UED is plenty shiny and in-your-face. Photo: Catalyst Outdoors
There are two ways of looking at the UEDs. On one hand, they are kind of a garish exemplification of rampant consumerism and blazing light pollution – and the NIMBY crowd are already hot on that bandwagon, trust – but, on the other, the displays are undeniably really cool. Artist renderings showed three initial launching points for the signs: a musical staff mounted above the Avenue of the Arts, a massive globe atop a two-story hand jutting from the sidewalk of Arch Street and a giant-sized hourglass perched on a parking garage ledge on Market Street.
Thanks to boundless creativity and the magic of computer animation, the messages displayed can be made to swirl, flash, drip (through the hourglass), and undulate in high-res full color. The whole shebang is, inarguably, a bit lurid in a Times Square-y kind of way. The architectural snobbery society is pretty much “hell to the no” on the issue, but c’mon… old/new fusion is A Thing, and I’m sort of digging the combo of historic facades and flashy signage We’re an international city, and maybe this is one of those “get with the times” wake-up calls.
It remains to be seen whether the City Council will be wooed by the whiz-bang innovation of the UEDs, which would cost a cool $2 mil apiece but, as per the proposal, generate millions for Center City businesses over the course of the signs’ lifespans. It’s important to note that council members are, as of right now, keeping mum on the matter – nobody has yet agreed to formally introduce the legislation. If Catalyst gets the green light, Philadelphia would be the first city in North America to feature the displays.
Are we not info-tained, Center City? Let’s hear what you have to say about this whole “digital district” thing.
