When a New Yorker wants to orient himself — emotionally, literally — in this concrete jungle, he doesn't use a compass or an astrolabe.
He picks out from the skyline the Pepsi Cola sign in Queens, the Freedom Tower in Manhattan, the History Channel billboard in the Bronx.
Or the giant “Love Letter to Brooklyn” mural covering a Downtown Brooklyn parking lot, a work by the artist Steve Powers that's now set for extinction after the garage closed Wednesday.
New Yorkers have a habit of forming attachments to landmarks that were constructed with no promise of permanence.
Especially when they lend themselves to such artistic photos.
Power's mural, which went up in 2011, could be seen from Hoyt and Livington Streets. The garage on which it was painted is owned by Macy's, which signed a deal in August to redevelop its Downtown Brooklyn store.
But it doesn't take "art" to move New Yorkers. A billboard has just as much impact:
The billboard, soon to be history after years of sitting atop the former ice-making factory at 20 Bruckner Blvd., signified home for many.
The Domino Sugar Factory sign had its share of devotees, too, before it went down in 2014.
The 40-foot sign at the factory came down in August 2014, as the property's owner prepared the raze the building and make way for more than 2,000 apartments, retail space, a school and five acres of waterfront open space.
The plan was to reinstall the sign at the site in a different location.
And the Kentile Floors sign mustered so much feeling it mobilized the community to take action.
The owner of the building on which the sign rested for decades, overlooking Gowanus, cited as his reasons for its removal in July 2014 the “long-deferred maintenance of the sign, the dilapidated condition of the warehouse roof, and ongoing structural issues in the building.”
An outcry from residents and City Councilman Brad Lander convinced Ely Cohen to donate the sign's enormous red letters to a neighborhood organization that promised to find them a new home.
It was, as usual, easy to use de Blasio as a scapegoat for their displacement.
We can't help but speculate as to which sign is next on the chopping block...
Advertisement