/ Xeni Jardin / 8:33 am Sun Aug 28, 2011

Hurricane Irene: The art of window-boarding and the taping of stores

An image gallery that shows New Yorkers will approach any task, even boarding up windows ahead of a storm, with attitude and style. Above, a Thai restaurant chose a vibrant, complex pattern of artisanal mango-yellow tape, while the Apple Store's sandbags are "a handsome gray-green, hand-filled and -tied."

Window-Dressing the West Village and MePa for #Irene: A Case Study - Eric's posterous.

(via @seanbonner + @artfagcity)

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  1. Hurricanes often present extended hours of continuous winds in excess of 70 mph with wind gusts going even higher, driving rain, local flooding and possible storm surge if you live near the coast. When faced with hours upon hours of high winds and driving – often near vertical – rain, taping windows won’t help very much. They should be boarded and/or shuttered. Boarded windows make great canvasses for graffiti artists and taggers and some of these are quite colorful and creative. Plywood and OSB with graffiti and tags are often kept and stored for use during the next hurricane season.

    1. Thank you for your comprehensive explanation of what a hurricane is, and the potential artistic value of street art. Any New Yorker who has been living in a bomb shelter for the last 30 years will certainly find this information valuable.

      1. Well, I think the big box stores will find the “value of street art on plywood” information handy. Just wait, in another hurricane season or two, there will be designer plywood on sale, designed and signed by Shepard Fairey and others.

  2. Tape is useless. Shutters are the best but have to be done well ahead of time. Plywood is one’s last hope (and a great painting surface).

  3. If I had to guess, the tape is probably there as a last resort to keep broken glass from carpeting the store if the window breaks.  No clue why there’s nothing else on the window.  Maybe the plywood store ran out.

    1. They should have read the press releases from their own city – “Don’t tape windows – it’s more dangerous than not taping”

  7. The amount of plywood on buildings nowhere near the main “at risk” areas in NYC is fairly astonishing. Looks like Bloomberg has locked in the plywood, tape-on-window & sandbaggers vote!

    Also, this was a great stimulus to the local grocery store economy. Viva hoarders! NYC! NYC! NYC!

  8. NYC must have a monopoly on hurricanes, window boarding, and grafitti b/c I’ve never ever seen anything like this in my life… /sarcasm off

    Seriously, NY is not the center of the world, and for all the “attitude and style” apparently shown here, they still come off as a bunch of whiners b/c all I’ve heard for over a week is a barrage of stories about some tiny earthquake and a lame ass hurricane.  Having lived in FL and Los Angeles for long periods of time, I’ve experienced far worse than what just happened, but I never felt the need to give the entire world a second by second update on it.  Seriously, these were minor incidents that would have mustered a 15 second news byte had they occured anywhere else in the world.  Not only that, but now I have to endure reports on how NY was apparently spared the massive devastation now that the storm blew over, and this story on window boarding “art???” is just the icing on the cake.

    1. Yes, if a natural disaster befalls New York City, that’s a more significant news story than if it happens almost anywhere else. Like it or not, New York City is very big and very important.

      And yes, if a natural disaster occurs somewhere unusual, like earthquakes on the east coast (even very minor ones) or hurricanes in NYC (even ones that have mostly fizzled out), that’s more of a story than places where those things are more common. Presumably even a very minor snowstorm in Los Angeles would be a big story.

      Also, I don’t really see much “whining” going on at all, unless whining includes joke pictures of fallen lawn furniture and dancing around behind news correspondents.

      1. what makes this post ridiculous isnt that its about a 100-year storm event (which is important), but that xeni seems to think that these nyc’ers have shown moxie, and design sensibility in the way they tape up their windows and stuff sandbags.  (which is ridiculous).  though the way the’ve made MSG look like the superdome is a real statement on the universality of the human experience. 

        check it: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/staticfiles/NGC/StaticFiles/Images/Show/27xx/271x/2710_inside_hurricane_katrina_update-2_04700300.jpg

          2. I’m usually good at seeing irony, and I’ve noticed that US Americans are quick to claim — unconvincingly — that they were being ironic when told they’re being ridiculous. But I hope that I’m wrong and you’re right.

      2. Sure, New York is big and important, but this breathless self absorption is unbelievable.
        New Yorkers tape up windows and fill sandbags more artistically and stylishly than ordinary people? Come off it.

    2. Seriously, NY is not the center of the world, and for all the “attitude and style” apparently shown here, they still come off as a bunch of whiners b/c all I’ve heard for over a week is a barrage of stories about some tiny earthquake and a lame ass hurricane.  Having lived in FL and Los Angeles for long periods of time, I’ve experienced far worse than what just happened.

      Yes, LA gets earthquakes, but lord help them when the humidity hits, what, 40%? They whine too, and larges swaths of the earth giggle. Having lived in FL you should understand this!

      The point is that people get excited when things that are out of the ordinary take place, and CA and FL are no exception.

      People take pride in the crappy stuff that their area has to put up with, and that’s OK I guess, but it really is silly to dismiss the other areas, ’cause yours is somehow “more intense.”

    3. At least 26 people have been known to be killed so far up the East coast and Vermont is dealing with unprecedented flooding.  I haven’t noticed any actual “whining” by New Yorkers, on the contrary in fact.   Stupid complaints about the storm not being as bad as expected, yes I’ve unfortunately noticed that.

      I guess the next time Florida has a frost disaster I can make smug, obnoxious comments because I live in a place that routinely gets below zero temps in the winter?

      A more serious complaint would be that media has not given the harder hit areas up on the East coast enough attention.

  9. Yeah, the tape is just for keeping the shattered shards inplace and prevent debris and water from coming in. Often times it is all one can afford, or it is all one can manage to do before evacuating.

    1. Nope. For that to even be remotely effective against debris, you’d have to tape the entire window solid — at which point plywood is more economical and quicker to install, and still more effective. And unless this is hitting as a Cat 2 or higher, there’s still not much to worry about unless you or your idiot neighbors leave loose stuff outside.

  13. I don’t know, the bb collective so often uses fancy words like ‘artisanal’ without being facetious that it becomes hard to tell when one of them is. 

  15. O.M.G, from the looks of it, they had it pretty bad, it looks like some of the tape has been viciously torn off by Irene’s 95 mph winds. That’s some tape, anybody know the brand? 

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