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Fulminating and seething over horrific lack of street numbers
By Jacob von Bisterfeld |
March 4, 2009, Wednesday
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WHAT makes for a super city, you might ask anyone in Shanghai.
Uhm, so the answer might go, well, in a super city we should expect: super high-speed Internet connections, super public transport, super traffic conditions, super infrastructure, super restaurants.
And I then hasten to add: Super signage!
I am writing this in the manifestly undesirable condition of having been soaked to the bone by pelting rain over a longish period while trying to locate the Ark restaurant at No. 248 Nanjing Road.
I was told by my host that all I had to do was get out at Exit 9 of the Peoples Square Metro station and, hey presto, 248 would lie at my feet in all its regal splendor.
I should have been forewarned because in China, not infrequently, a professed "short" walking distance has in practice been the equivalent of a 15-minute taxi ride.
And so it came to pass that I crossed the road perpendicularly and landed at an obviously in statu nescendi edifice titled: Grand Theater, with no street number to be seen anywhere in the obvious places.
And to my utter dismay, neither an adjacent single shop, showroom, spanking new gold-and-marble bank nor office building had a single street number affixed in a location that could be seen easily. As I continued to search, the rain became heavier and heavier with no umbrella sellers in sight.
In desperation, I crossed Nanjing Road in my search for No. 248, or any number for that matter, in the next block.
Finally, on the opposite side of Nanjing Road, I spotted a small square green, anno 1950s street number on one of the few remaining dillapidados. And, as luck had it, a few shops further down the road, a corresponding and faded historic street number too, so enabling me to conclude that I was about a mile off my target.
By now, rainwater had penetrated perilously close to my underwear, yet I plodded on and finally returned to my original starting point: the Grand Theater in its state of being revived. But, hey, presto, this time a notice board of the VERY restaurant, the Ark, had been placed on the side walk.
Thank ye, oh Gods!
Sad to think though that I ultimately found my bearings NOT because of efficient street numbering that should have been in situ, but by virtue of an old-fashioned mini-billboard that was placed in the street.
Imagine the year 2010 when millions of foreigners will be thronging to Shanghai and all in search of No. 248 Nanjing Road and all being unable to find the Ark restaurant for lack of street numbers.
What needs to be done? Very simple: Building owners need to be circularized with a polite warning that street number of uniform-looking brass XXL numbers need to be affixed uniformly at a height of 2 meters, at the left hand extremity of any building as well as at the main entrance.
Simple comme bonjour.
(The author is a freelancer in Shanghai. The views expressed are his own.)
Uhm, so the answer might go, well, in a super city we should expect: super high-speed Internet connections, super public transport, super traffic conditions, super infrastructure, super restaurants.
And I then hasten to add: Super signage!
I am writing this in the manifestly undesirable condition of having been soaked to the bone by pelting rain over a longish period while trying to locate the Ark restaurant at No. 248 Nanjing Road.
I was told by my host that all I had to do was get out at Exit 9 of the Peoples Square Metro station and, hey presto, 248 would lie at my feet in all its regal splendor.
I should have been forewarned because in China, not infrequently, a professed "short" walking distance has in practice been the equivalent of a 15-minute taxi ride.
And so it came to pass that I crossed the road perpendicularly and landed at an obviously in statu nescendi edifice titled: Grand Theater, with no street number to be seen anywhere in the obvious places.
And to my utter dismay, neither an adjacent single shop, showroom, spanking new gold-and-marble bank nor office building had a single street number affixed in a location that could be seen easily. As I continued to search, the rain became heavier and heavier with no umbrella sellers in sight.
In desperation, I crossed Nanjing Road in my search for No. 248, or any number for that matter, in the next block.
Finally, on the opposite side of Nanjing Road, I spotted a small square green, anno 1950s street number on one of the few remaining dillapidados. And, as luck had it, a few shops further down the road, a corresponding and faded historic street number too, so enabling me to conclude that I was about a mile off my target.
By now, rainwater had penetrated perilously close to my underwear, yet I plodded on and finally returned to my original starting point: the Grand Theater in its state of being revived. But, hey, presto, this time a notice board of the VERY restaurant, the Ark, had been placed on the side walk.
Thank ye, oh Gods!
Sad to think though that I ultimately found my bearings NOT because of efficient street numbering that should have been in situ, but by virtue of an old-fashioned mini-billboard that was placed in the street.
Imagine the year 2010 when millions of foreigners will be thronging to Shanghai and all in search of No. 248 Nanjing Road and all being unable to find the Ark restaurant for lack of street numbers.
What needs to be done? Very simple: Building owners need to be circularized with a polite warning that street number of uniform-looking brass XXL numbers need to be affixed uniformly at a height of 2 meters, at the left hand extremity of any building as well as at the main entrance.
Simple comme bonjour.
(The author is a freelancer in Shanghai. The views expressed are his own.)
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