Grand Central Partnership (GCP)
-
Problem: Cluttered Curbs & Toppled Newsracks
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
-
Solution: Market-First Multi-Unit Newsrack
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
-
Results: Publisher & Reader Joy
It all begins with an idea. Maybe you want to launch a business. Maybe you want to turn a hobby into something more. Or maybe you have a creative project to share with the world. Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.
GCP Business Improvement District
Located in the heart of midtown Manhattan, Grand Central Partnership (GCP) is a private, non-profit organization that provides supplemental city services such as sanitation, security homeless outreach, public events and visitor services.
In 1994, GCP embarked upon a then-unique program to help clean up street clutter created in part by individual newspaper boxes. At the time, GCP approached newspaper publishers and proposed a multiple unit newsrack program, which it agreed to underwrite and where publishers would get space in the modular news racks at a very small cost. In return, publishers agreed to remove their single newspaper boxes from the GCP service area.
Custom Solutions in Action
The GCP program is unique because it operates in a non-regulated environment, depending on the voluntary participation of the publishers for its success. As established by CityRax principal Kathy Kahng, all publishers with newspaper boxes were approached by GCP and convinced to participate in the program on a totally voluntary basis, with no signed agreements or regulations.
GCP’s modular newsrack is an attractive custom designed structure that has cabinet space for at least six publication per site, with paid publications getting a whole cabinet and the free publications getting half a cabinet. Participating publishers include The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and New York Post, as well as unpaid publications such as the Learning Annex, Village Voice and Gotham Writers Workshop.
The program has been an enormous success and there are 116 modular news rack locations throughout the 80-block GCP business improvement district. The program was installed in 1995-1996. Kathy Kahng, CityRax principal was the founding manager of the GCP newsrack program and was on staff as the Marketing Director from 1995 – 1998.
CityRax continues to manage the Grand Central Partnership newsrack program on a consultancy basis.
Reference: Marc Wurzel
VP/General Counsel
212-883-2464
mwurzel@gcpbid.org
Grand Central Partnership
122 East 42nd Street,
Suite 601
New York, NY 10168
