It's like taking Janet Reno for a make-over

The Harrison Red Line Stop. For five years I have departed the southbound trains onto this stop for school. It is dark, wet, creepy, cold, and overwhelmingly smells like a toilet. Pretty much everything has an “out of order” sign on it. The walls have been painted far too many times, and it is almost always flooded to some extent. About six months ago Columbia College Chicago, in collaboration with Jones College Prep school took on the task of "brightening up" the 80-year old station. Their project, entitled "Harrison Haiku" consists of placing colored vinyl stickers on the white tile of the lobby of the station in various designs. Then the walls are littered with eight student authored haikus, written on the walls with black vinyl lettering. The result is a painfully bright and rather unattractive display.

For me, I don't care what the Columbia students and staff are trying to say with this project. Like everyone else who uses the Harrison stop, I want to spend as little time in that smelly hole as humanly possible. I would much rather the station be remodeled, or stripped and repainted, or at least cleaned thoroughly. No one has the time or motivation to stand around in the lobby and read random 17 syllable haikus. This project feels like putting cheap mustard on a turd sandwich. It’s not very appealing, and it doesn’t really make it any better.

The Roosevelt station, in contrast was taken over by the museum campus. Despite the fact that their graphics are much more tastefully done, the station as a whole is clean, well-lit, and looks very nice. Even then, I wouldn’t really want to stand around and read Haikus, but the designers of Roosevelt station don’t expect you to. They expect you to glance at them in passing, to enjoy them aesthetically. They even go to the level of putting in some ambient music to add to the short experience.

So the project was a nice thought, but it really should wait until the CTA does something with that station. It has to happen sometime soon. The only silver lining here is that this whole project could be literally ripped off of the wall in minutes, which hopefully they do sooner, rather than later.