Danny The Street has a question for you., originally uploaded by moleitau.
1) Think of the street you spend the most time on.
2) Think of a magical difference you could make to the fabric of that street (i.e. not the people that annoy you)
3) Tell Danny (and me) about it in the comments to this post.
More about Danny here, and many thanks to Tom for introducing us.
Petafloptimism 
OK, so just about about day-tripper to Greenwich takes a picture of this ‘no itinerant ice cream sellers’ sign, which is just outside the museum’s east wing.
I’d like to hang a portrait of an ice cream van underneath, with a ‘did you see anything’ notice. This could be updated once a week, with the fine specimens from one of the many ice cream van groups on Flickr. Here are some of my favourites:
http://flickr.com/photos/mcginnes/1161490010/
http://flickr.com/photos/soralium/1482877451/
http://flickr.com/photos/lenaah/2711263109/
I reckon Danny the street would welcome itinerant ice cream vans, especially if they had some contraband gear under the counter.
Not sure how magical this is, but I would like Danny to tell me who he is and where he came from. Tell me all about himself, in fact. How he got his name, how old he is, what he’s been through in the past.
I’ve seen some cities having a go at this. One in Bangkok sticks in my mind – http://www.flickr.com/photos/ianfuller/384584472/sizes/l/. This seemed like a fairly ordinary street but a sign explaining the history of it (the name means Pencil Street because this is where they used to make pencils and notebooks) made it come alive (although not literally).
Half way down Gleneldon road in Streatham, I would like to park a non-batterable cross between a streetsign and a fairground booth-front, glitzily announcing its intention.
Stop!
Which way now?
A spinning arrow revealing the consequences* of the direction the arrow stops at. Those consequences would be updated regularly, with the interface easy enough for people to add their own.
*ie: funny / interesting / hopeful / just nice art and messages. Something to make the action non-pointless.
Inevitable vandalism would necessitate regular updating.
This reminds me of two seperate events, one of which Matt may recall being discussed amongst friends previously ( someone or other that Matt Locke knows?):
-A municipal art project which instead of of creating an ‘object’, took out a bunch of rails along a road, and replaced them with ones which were calibrated to make tunes if bashed along with a stick – totally unanounced (gorgeous!)
-Someone who threw out their old stand up piano they no longer had room for by placing it on their road, on a safe bit, with a sign inviting it to be played. I *think* they used to come out and lock it of an evening. The council were going to remove it, but it was so loved by the locals that they backed down. I think they were on their third or 4th battered old piano by the time I read the news story. It’ll be buried on Beeb news somewhere.
I spend quite a good bit of time on Mannerheimintie in Helsinki, Finland. And let me tell you, one thing Mannerheimintie could *definitely* use would be the ability to molecularly decompose, absorb and/or turn to good purpose broken beer-bottle glass, vomit and human urine.
I imagine one could extend the principle, with profit.
There’s a bit of crappy derelict ground on the estate I live on. I would like to grow a Magic Faraway Tree (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Faraway_Tree_series) on it.
Heh, nice!
In my little silicon valley burbclave of Menlo Park, commercial rents are atrocious and the high cost drives out imaginative, creative businesses in favor of chain stores. If you could magically work it out so that the landlords charged their tenants not in money, but in contribution to the social and cultural well-being of the community, I think it would be a good improvement.
And of course reserve a little magic dust so the mayor’s committee on deciding what constitutes “well-being” don’t massacree themselves.