Scalping could be somewhat solved by auctioning off the high value spots (not the auction would be universally known and there wouldn’t be any resales) so that you don’t sell below fair value. Anyway the much simpler solution is to charge for parking. 3 million parking spots for 60/month on average gets you there and is incredibly cheap parking
> "Only about 70% of Central Park’s benches have been adopted, and that’s the highest value location in the whole city."
That does suggest that increasing the salience of the good, existing opportunities left unfilled could at least make a dent. Get Mamdani to say he'll get brunch with a random person who sponsors a bench in Q1 '26, get the Humans of New York guy to do a series on past bench honorees, and you can at least expand that market a bit.
That’s such a great point - New York has a ton of cultural capital, the naming rights can be secondary to a cultural and sweepstake-ization effect. Could the Humans of New York guy get a tax writeoff if he’s able to move some of the less desireable benches?
That is super interesting! Was the vandalism mostly random, or did you have personal disputes overflow into bench competition? I can imagine it getting nasty if two people both really want to adopt the same bench.
Scalping could be somewhat solved by auctioning off the high value spots (not the auction would be universally known and there wouldn’t be any resales) so that you don’t sell below fair value. Anyway the much simpler solution is to charge for parking. 3 million parking spots for 60/month on average gets you there and is incredibly cheap parking
The high cost of free parking indeed - the hard part as always is administering it for less than a billion dollars 😅
> "Only about 70% of Central Park’s benches have been adopted, and that’s the highest value location in the whole city."
That does suggest that increasing the salience of the good, existing opportunities left unfilled could at least make a dent. Get Mamdani to say he'll get brunch with a random person who sponsors a bench in Q1 '26, get the Humans of New York guy to do a series on past bench honorees, and you can at least expand that market a bit.
That’s such a great point - New York has a ton of cultural capital, the naming rights can be secondary to a cultural and sweepstake-ization effect. Could the Humans of New York guy get a tax writeoff if he’s able to move some of the less desireable benches?
Don’t forget that the city would somehow pay ~$2.4Bn for contractors to review, flag, approve, and monitor all these plaques…
Naming everything in NYC: the ultimate jobs program?
That is super interesting! Was the vandalism mostly random, or did you have personal disputes overflow into bench competition? I can imagine it getting nasty if two people both really want to adopt the same bench.