“Amenities, Not Enemies” and Other NEMA Building Rhymes That DON’T MAKE ANY SENSE

By Jessica Saia

I recently walked past the NEMA building on 10th and Market for the first time and have since become fixated on the rhyming billboards they have covering the windows of the not-yet-realized retail space under the luxury apartment complex. The advertisements barely make sense, yet have this condescending, chiding tone to them, which is an extremely irritating combination. It’s like the company just took semi-relevant buzzwords, Googled “rhymes with,” added some “NOT”s or “DON’T”s and marinated each phrase in capslock.

Let’s take a look:

RENT, DON’T VENT.

WHO is venting? Non-renters? Oh yeah, all those dozens of friends I have who own homes in San Francisco and just can’t stop bitching about it. And if this is referencing renters, that venting is regarding SF rent prices, in which case I would maybe chill on that message, NEMA. *COUGH* $8,950/month 3BR without rent control *COUGH*.

“Local” is totally hot right now, in the sense that you, like, buy your chard at the farmer’s market. So … I guess the message here is that the place where you live is pretty close to the place where you live? I caught a glimpse of a pool table in their promotional video, so I’ll give them “social.”

INNOVATE, DON’T IMITATE.

If we never heard the “I” word again, it would be too soon. But, ok. Innovation. Also hot right now. I just don’t get how much you can innovate/not imitate when it comes to constructing an apartment building. Those light-switches man, what a lazy ripoff of all those OTHER light switches.

AMENITIES, NOT ENEMIES.

WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? WHAT ENEMIES? This is the one that makes me feel totally insane. “It’s so great, dude, my spot in the NEMA building came with a dishwasher, which is such an upgrade from my last place where the guy who washed my dishes hired a hit man on me.”

TECH SAVVY, NOT SHABBY.

Fine, fine. The building has its own app that you can use to valet your car, and sure, I wouldn’t call the place “shabby.” But rhyming seems to be the sole requirement for choosing which words to place in all of these phrases, and this one is a little weak.

I know these billboards aren’t new, they’ve been around since at least 2013, but this pointless obsession chose me, and I couldn’t help but offer some new phrases for NEMA to freshen things up: