#HTE

Today’s Urban Design Observation: Furniture Waste

This cabinet of metal drawers lives in my shop. I found it on the street and use it to hold the random things that don’t live on my tool wall.

As you can see by this label that I never removed, it was once used by a police department.

I scored it maybe seven years ago. It was sitting in a pile of discarded furniture outside of the Louis J. Lefkowitz State Office Building, a large municipal complex near the courthouses downtown. At least once a year, and sometimes twice a year, they get rid of a shocking amount of furniture. Here’s what it looked like this week, as I passed it with my dogs:

I took an interest in this desk, hoping to find a slab of real wood I could salvage. 

But a close inspection revealed the top was plywood that had been edged with thin strips of real wood so I passed.

As I mentioned before, this complex regularly dumps an obscene amount of furniture to be hauled away. It doesn’t even look that old nor does much of it appear to be broken. My guess is it’s that thing where government bodies need to spend all of their money at a certain time of year in order to retain their budget allotment.

A neighborhood away, I spotted this sofa out by the curb.

I inspected it as best I could and could find no visible damage or stains, except for some pilling of the fabric, seen here.

Perhaps the pillows beneath, which I could not get at, bore the marks of some accident. If that’s the case it’s a damn shame, as having a cushion re-upholstered is not difficult. Or maybe the owner just got tired of the style.

I bet a lot of people could’ve used a lot of the items shown here and would have been happy to haul them away, had they known about them.

http://www.core77.com/posts/72190/Todays-Urban-Design-Observation-Furniture-Waste