Urban Umbrellas, Comely Canopies, Sightly Scaffolding

I prefer the name “temporal portico,” but “urban umbrella” will suffice until we come up with something better for the rainbow-colored scaffolding alternative:

In a bid to beautify city sidewalks, Mayor Bloomberg yesterday rolled out a replacement for the hideous steel and plywood sheds that have been leaking rain water or blocking sunshine for pedestrians outside construction sites since the early 1950s.

“These structures reflect the face of a city that is constantly changing, yet the sheds themselves haven’t evolved at all in the past five decades,” the mayor said. “It’s time to bring them into the 21st century.”

The shed’s replacement, dubbed the urban umbrella, was picked from among 164 designs submitted from 28 countries. The winner, Young-Hwan Choi, is a 28-year-old student at the University of Pennsylvania.