Pop Up Lunch NYC: temporary nosh-surfaces for New York's streets

Here's a great look at Pop Up Lunch: NYC, a work-in-progress from Ali Pulver, a grad student at Pratt. The idea is to create a bunch of portable, temporary eating surfaces that hungry New Yorkers can chow down from after buying street food from a wagon or cart.

Those of us who love eating street food, but hate taking lunch back to our desks, have a common problem. Where should we eat? There are a number of indoor pavilions and outdoor seating areas scattered across Midtown, but sometimes I just wish there was a place right next to the carts to just saddle up and tuck in. Well thanks to Pratt Grad Student Ali Pulver, now there is. For her thesis she is developing a couple of tools to make it easier for us to eat on the street. And after testing out the "Lunch Shelf" and the "Hydrantable" last week, I've got to say these could represent the greatest advancements in street food technology since the invention of chicken and lamb over rice!

Hydrantables & Lunch Shelves Are Amazing New Achievements in Street Food Eating Technology

Pop Up Lunch: NYC

(via Making Light)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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Anonymous

Brilliant. Hope for humanity.
ParsDestruensParsConstruens

Just so you know, there’s an error in the first sentence. “…student at Pulver” ought to read “…student at Pratt,” I think.
sally599

FYI they use a high powered magnet not hooks.
Adam Fields

This probably needs to have some sort of integrated trash disposal area.
Anonymous

I have seen hydrant tables for years in New Orleans, and the ones being used clearly look like they were “invented” decades ago.
MarkM

The thing I tend to notice at the mobile lunch carts is: huge amounts of trash in and around the cart, obviously left by previous patrons of said cart. Better that they have no place to eat so that they take their food and its detritus away with it.
jfrancis

Reminds me of small paintings I’ve seen with screws spaced so as to allow them to be hung from those same kinds of street poles.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/digitalartform/4092491944/in/set-72157616895404776/
Anonymous

It needs more prevention of it spinning off, perhaps two bolts to hold it up.
Also, a lip to help prevent a bump on the pole or the tray causing complete culinary catastrophe would be good too.
- dculberson
  
  I’m pretty sure it does go into more than one hole; you can see a white vertical piece below the upper tray. Otherwise it wouldn’t be balancing like that, I think.
Quiet Noises

He should’ve resolved his materials to something more practical than a slab of MDF before this really quite decent idea hit the blogosphere.
McMe

Nice to see a little more liveability in the fabric of our lives. Now we just need to get the Architects on side and incorporate the idea into the design of buildings and outdoor structures
dequeued

Those would be awesome on the subway.
I usually eat my breakfast on the subway, and while walking to the subway.
Stiv

Nice, but I see people leaving their trash behind. Maybe she can mount small trash cans as well.