BoSacks Speaks Out: When the Newsstand Left the Station

BoSacks Speaks Out: When the Newsstand Left the Station

There are changes in publishing that arrive with press releases, strategy decks, consultants, and grand declarations about transformation.

And then there are changes that happen quietly, one shuttered newsstand at a time.

Anne Kadet, writing for Curbed, recently reported that New York’s MTA is beginning to fill some of its abandoned subway newsstand spaces with giant vending machines. I read the story with more than a little nostalgia.

For those of us who grew up in the great age of print, the subway newsstand was part of the landscape of New York City.

You came up the stairs. You went down the stairs. You caught your train. And somewhere in that journey there was a newsstand overflowing with newspapers, magazines, candy, gum, cigarettes, drinks, and all the other little necessities of urban life.

The magazines mattered.

A subway newsstand was one of thousands of places where publishers competed for attention every single day. Covers mattered because you had perhaps two seconds to catch the eye of somebody rushing for the train. Placement mattered. Color mattered. Celebrity mattered. Headlines mattered.

The newsstand was an extraordinarily democratic marketplace.

Time sat next to People. Cosmopolitan battled Glamour. Sports Illustrated competed with dozens of other titles. Newspapers screamed their headlines at commuters. Specialized magazines somehow found their audience among millions of people passing through the system.

For publishers, those racks were not decoration. They were distribution.

But they were also something else.

They were marketing.

The subway newsstand wasn’t merely a point of purchase. It was a giant, constantly changing advertisement for the magazine business itself.

Millions of commuters walked past those racks every day. They saw the covers whether they bought them or not. A new issue of Time, New York, Sports Illustrated, Cosmopolitan, People, The New Yorker, or dozens of smaller titles announced itself simply by being there.

You might have gone into the subway intending only to get to work and suddenly discovered a magazine you didn’t know existed. A cover could catch your eye. A headline could stop you. A photograph could make you reach into your pocket.

That was marketing publishers didn’t have to purchase separately. The distribution system itself created awareness.

So when we talk about the collapse of newsstand sales, I think we have to recognize a second loss that is much harder to measure. We didn’t just lose copies sold. We lost millions upon millions of daily magazine impressions.

The racks reminded the public that magazines existed.

Take away enough racks, enough bookstores, enough airport newsstands, enough supermarket checkout displays, and magazines slowly become less visible in everyday life. Then we wonder why younger consumers don’t think about buying them.

That may be one of the great overlooked consequences of the decline of the newsstand.

Distribution was also marketing.

And we lost both.

Now many of those subway newsstands are gone.

According to Kadet’s reporting, most subway newsstands and walk-in convenience shops closed during the pandemic, and many never reopened. The MTA has now begun installing large vending-machine installations in some of those vacant spaces.

The first new machines have appeared at the Second Avenue F station, 23rd Street at Broadway, and 116th Street at Lexington Avenue. Another 23 stations are scheduled to receive them, bringing the total to 26.

The machines are enormous compared with the old Coke-and-candy vending machines most of us remember. They were specifically designed for subway use, with heavy-duty steel bodies and large LED advertising screens. Put several together and they resemble a glowing little automated storefront.

The MTA apparently would rather have people behind the counters.

David Florio, the agency’s real-estate chief, told Curbed that staffed stores are preferable partly because having a person there adds security to the station. The problem is economic. At many locations there simply is not enough business anymore to support a staffed retail operation.

So where commerce cannot support a person, technology moves in.

Sound familiar, publishing friends?

There is also a wonderful historical irony here.

Vending machines are not actually new to the subway.

Polly Desjarlais of the New York Transit Museum says vending machines were everywhere in the transit system beginning in the 1880s. Thousands of machines dispensed chewing gum, peanuts, chocolate, and other treats.

By the 1940s and 1950s, subway riders could buy soda and coffee from machines. At Brooklyn’s Jay Street station, there was even a machine dispensing soft-serve ice cream.

Imagine that.

The machines largely disappeared during the 1970s because of vandalism and maintenance problems.

Now they are back.

History doesn’t always repeat itself, but occasionally it misses its train and catches the next one.

The difference, of course, is what today’s machines represent.

The old newsstand was run by a human being surrounded by merchandise. The new operation is automated commerce built around efficiency. Swipe, tap, grab your Doritos, and catch the train.

The initial selection is hardly revolutionary. Chips, candy, cookies, soda, and water dominate the machines. Strawberry Pop-Tarts apparently qualify as one of the more adventurous offerings.

Curbed watched the machines at the Second Avenue station for two hours and saw roughly ten customers make purchases while hundreds of riders passed by.

Some riders liked the convenience. Others complained about the selection and prices.

And the prices are worth noting.

A 20-ounce Coke costs $3.50. A 2.17-ounce package of Skittles costs $3.25. A two-ounce package of Planters peanuts also costs $3.25.

One rider pointed out that he routinely buys those peanuts elsewhere for 99 cents.

The MTA says it does not control the prices. Its philosophy is essentially that the market will decide. If riders think the vending machines are too expensive, they can buy their snacks at the neighborhood bodega instead.

The company operating the machines is CC Vending, a local business with a fascinating story of its own.

Founder Michael Cascione Sr. started the family company in 1989 by installing his first vending machine in a Washington Heights laundromat. Today the company employs about 140 people and operates more than 5,000 machines in gas stations, schools, employee break rooms, and other locations around the New York area.

Now it can add the New York City subway system.

CC Vending will pay the MTA $102,500 annually for five years to operate machines in the 26 stations. The MTA will also receive 14 percent of revenue once annual sales exceed $1 million.

The company says its product choices are driven by data from its existing network of 5,000 machines. The biggest sellers in the New York market?

Water and orange Doritos.

There is a sentence that probably tells us something profound about modern civilization, although I haven’t figured out exactly what yet.

The product mix may eventually expand beyond snacks and drinks to include coffee, technology products, and other merchandise.

Cascione also wants to add Snickers, reportedly the region’s best-selling candy bar. There is just one problem. Subway stations are currently too hot for products that melt.

Come fall, the chocolate arrives.

And perhaps that is where the story becomes more than a quirky tale about vending machines.

Something disappeared from the subway.

Not simply the person behind the counter.

Not simply magazines and newspapers.

We lost one of those little intersections between publishing and everyday life.

Millions of commuters once walked past magazine covers every morning whether they intended to buy one or not. Publishing occupied physical space in people’s lives. Newspapers shouted from racks. Magazine covers competed for attention. You encountered journalism simply because you were walking to work.

Today people still consume extraordinary amounts of information, probably far more than they ever did when those newsstands were thriving. But increasingly they encounter it privately through the screen in their hand.

There is no rack.

There is no cover staring back at you.

There is no accidental discovery of a magazine you never knew existed.

There is an algorithm instead.

I am not suggesting we turn back the clock. The economics that supported many subway newsstands disappeared long before somebody decided to install a vending machine. And I understand perfectly well why a commuter racing for the F train might prefer tapping a screen to standing in line.

Progress usually wins because it solves a problem.

But those old subway newsstands represented something worth remembering.

They were tiny temples of mass media.

And now, where magazines and newspapers once fought for our attention, we have water, Pop-Tarts, Skittles, peanuts, and orange Doritos.

Perhaps no monument better captures the transformation of the media business than that.

The racks disappeared.

The audience kept walking.

Source: Anne Kadet, “The Vending Machines Replacing Subway Newsstands,” Curbed.

https://www.curbed.com/article/mta-vending-machines-subway-newsstands.html