Pop-up libraries built out of old phone booths

Any of these popping up in Brooklyn yet?

John Locke thinks people should read more. So in the past few months, the Columbia architecture grad has slipped around Manhattan with a sack of books and custom-made shelves, converting old pay phones into pop-up libraries.

The concept, sponsored by Locke's imaginary Department of Urban Betterment, is that New Yorkers will pick up unfamiliar titles while running their errands and then, perhaps, replace them the next day with favorite books of their own. That's in an ideal world. Of the two guerrilla libraries that the artist has fashioned, one has been used properly while the other has had its entire collection repeatedly ganked by sticky-fingered pedestrians. Its shelves were also stolen.

But Locke has many more libraries planned.

via How New York Pay Phones Became Guerrilla Libraries - Arts & Lifestyle - The Atlantic Cities.

Great idea....if you live in Utopia. But people being what they are won't let this idea stick around too much longer. Too bad. I wonder if he has permission from the company that owns the booth to do this since it appears that the phone is functional.

Must you always be so... pragmatic... pragmaticguy??

[-(

It's in the genes....I can't help myself.