By Gabriela Resto-Montero
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
UPPER EAST SIDE — Community Board 8 killed a preliminary proposal to allow apartment buildings within 125 feet of Second Avenue to post billboards as a way to recoup money lost to the Second Avenue Subway project.
The idea was proposed by residents of 245 East 72nd St. who have spent tens of thousands of dollars on engineers, lawyers and consultants in working with the MTA. Area businesses also liked the idea because it would help promote those that have been obscured by construction.
But the plan was shot down during the board's subway task force meeting Tuesday.
"We'll look like 42nd Street," Kathy Watts-Grossman, a resident of 320 East 72nd Street, said at the meeting. "If you cheapen the neighborhood by putting up signage, you can't take it back."
Alisa Coleman, president of 245 East 72nd St.'s co-op board, said she expected residents would pay out $350,000 in costs related to the subway project.
The request for signage would only make the ad space available until 2016, when subway construction is expected to conclude, Coleman said. Ads for alcohol and tobacco would be rejected.
But the board argued that once zoning changed to allow ads in residential neighborhoods, it would be impossible to roll them back.
"Once you let the genie out of the bottle, you can't put it back in," said Valerie Mason, a resident of 301 East 68th St., who added that all residential buildings along the construction route are dealing with similar expenses.
"We all have to stick together and we have to take the pain together," Mason said.
Second Avenue business owners also supported the idea in order to attract customers, said Richard Bass, a consultant with Herrick, Feinstein, who said he represented between 15 and 20 businesses.
"It's a trade-off of evils," Bass said. "No one likes to advertise in a residential neighborhood, but no one likes shutting down businesses."
