Figured this was Sox-enough for the main forum
It looks like they're trying to elevate the Citgo sign to landmark status.
It looks like they're trying to elevate the Citgo sign to landmark status.
Sure it is, inasmuch as many existing officially designated Boston Landmarks -- like the Filene's Complex and Jacob Wirth's Restaurant -- eventually transitioned from commercial spaces to community icons.It is absolutely a landmark in that when I lived in the BU area, it was how I figured out which direction to drunkenly stumble home. In terms of being an actual "historical" landmark, it isn't and shouldn't be.
Citgo.Icon-yes.
Landmark-no.
Question regarding the sign-who owns/maintains it?
Icon-yes.
Landmark-no.
Question regarding the sign-who owns/maintains it?
For years there was "Foley Electric" on the sign and Marty Foley maintained the sign. I just saw a special on CH 7 that he retired. Not sure who is doing it now.Citgo.
First thing I thought of was the Domino Sugar sign in Baltimore as well, though I don't think it has the legal distinction of a landmark.Sure it is, inasmuch as many existing officially designated Boston Landmarks -- like the Filene's Complex and Jacob Wirth's Restaurant -- eventually transitioned from commercial spaces to community icons.
The closest analogy I can think of is the Pepsi-Cola sign on the Queens waterfront. The New York Landmarks Preservation Commission had this same debate for about 30 years, and decided earlier this year to grant it landmark status: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/nyregion/pepsi-cola-sign-in-queens-gains-landmark-status.html
Same logic and purpose applies here, and I expect it will eventually result in landmark status for the Citgo sign as well.
Absolutely, and you're right: that one is still on the site of a functioning Domino refinery, so the company controls it and there's no danger of demolition so no need to pursue landmark recognition.First thing I thought of was the Domino Sugar sign in Baltimore as well, though I don't think it has the legal distinction of a landmark.
It's no "Ellis the Rim Man"Seems like the exact definition of a landmark to me.
I think the status of the sign is a little clouded by the whole Hugo Chavez/Venezuelan State Oil thing. Maybe the sign stays, and with great fanfare the "Citgo" ad is removed, and replaced by something less communist...at great profit to the owner and as valuable advertising for the new sponsor.Hugo Chavez and Joe Kennedy will be very happy.
Yeah, I don't really get the desire to give landmark status to a piece of advertising (I also don't get giving naming rights of stadiums to corporations when taxpayers are footing most of the bill, but maybe that's just me). Perhaps the city would be interested in purchasing the sign and commissioning work from local designers to replace it?I think the status of the sign is a little clouded by the whole Hugo Chavez/Venezuelan State Oil thing. Maybe the sign stays, and with great fanfare the "Citgo" ad is removed, and replaced by something less communist...at great profit to the owner and as valuable advertising for the new sponsor.
The rights aren't given, they are sold by the team for big bucks. Then those big bucks get put into the budget to represent the team's contribution to the cost of the project. This is called a "public / private partnership." (Blechhhh.)(I also don't get giving naming rights of stadiums to corporations when taxpayers are footing most of the bill, but maybe that's just me).
I wouldn't mind replacing the "Citgo" with "Boston" -- I think that looks pretty good:I think the status of the sign is a little clouded by the whole Hugo Chavez/Venezuelan State Oil thing. Maybe the sign stays, and with great fanfare the "Citgo" ad is removed, and replaced by something less communist...at great profit to the owner and as valuable advertising for the new sponsor.
BU will build luxury apartments there. That way they can capture more of that "rich foreign students who want to live off campus and barely attend BU" money.Everyone will be wishing the sign had landmark status when the days comes that B.U. wants to tear that building down and put up a tower.
Boy Fenway looks so.....plain. No signage anywhere on the monster or anything. And what's with nobody being along the 3b side past the dugout?Shouldn't they replace it with the original Cities Service sign?
This actually came back up again, not because BU is looking to build anything, BU is looking at selling 9 buildings in Kenmore Square, including the bookstore. So the new owner is likely going to want to tear the building down, build something higher, build new buildings around it that blocks it's view etc.BU will build luxury apartments there. That way they can capture more of that "rich foreign students who want to live off campus and barely attend BU" money.
Yeah, it's weird, but Americans love signs.Yeah, I don't really get the desire to give landmark status to a piece of advertising (I also don't get giving naming rights of stadiums to corporations when taxpayers are footing most of the bill, but maybe that's just me). Perhaps the city would be interested in purchasing the sign and commissioning work from local designers to replace it?
One of my favorites is the Grain Belt Beer sign on the river in Minneapolis:Yeah, it's weird, but Americans love signs.
Queens has the Pepsi-Cola sign, Baltimore has the Domino Sugars sign, Vegas has the welcome sign and the "Vegas Vic" cowboy, LA has Randy's donuts and the Hollywood sign, Chicago has their theater sign, Seattle has the Public Market sign, etc. Plenty of other examples.
Time to quote Chinatown:Yeah, it's weird, but Americans love signs.
Queens has the Pepsi-Cola sign, Baltimore has the Domino Sugars sign, Vegas has the welcome sign and the "Vegas Vic" cowboy, LA has Randy's donuts and the Hollywood sign, Chicago has their theater sign, Seattle has the Public Market sign, etc. Plenty of other examples.
Some of them may have started out as "advertising" but for one reason or another -- perhaps as part of our increasingly photograph saturated and nostalgic culture -- all have become icons and city symbols.
That's a great one.One of my favorites is the Grain Belt Beer sign on the river in Minneapolis:
Plain is golden. No signage is a good thing! Sure, attendance was lax sometimes, but the place was still a cathedral...as it is now. And how about a little love for Chevron? Mercy...Boy Fenway looks so.....plain. No signage anywhere on the monster or anything. And what's with nobody being along the 3b side past the dugout?
IIRC, Ellis had a younger brother named Ferris who specialized in custom exhaust, and whose (now defunct) business was called "Ferris the Hum Bro".It's no "Ellis the Rim Man"
I'll always miss you Ellis.
If the tower had a pleasing design, I wouldn't care. Cities change.Everyone will be wishing the sign had landmark status when the days comes that B.U. wants to tear that building down and put up a tower.
Which companies were these? Fossil fuels poisoned plenty of children.not to mention the celebration of a nation of dreams which purveyed a myriad of local and distant road trips for family recreation as well as business marketing the old fashioned way, which were in fact made possible by cheap fossil fuels and big old engines and companies we could trust to invest in our communities and not poison our children.
I agree with much of what you've said here, but lets not get too misty eyed over halcyon days gone by. I grew up near the Merrimack River when everything in it was dead; and most of the things near it were dead--including the textile mills.Actually, I was referring to the industry that vitalized our nation, a good book to read about that is FREEDOM'S FORGE by Arthur Herman. However, back in the day, before the excessive corruption and competition to stay alive devoured the industries that produced most of our products along with living wage jobs and benefits, such as pensions, once thought to be immune from corporate raiding for the Wall Street compulsive gamblers' incessant game-playing with workers' lives, most every community had thriving downtowns and realized hopes for their kids to be able to have good standards of living, and shared recreation in the mainstream of common interests like a world class ball team.
You know, it strikes me that we went from having factories and production that were supporting local commerce, schools and community social goods, which could be monitored and have a risk and benefits ratio for our regions that allowed oversight of pollutants and cessation of problems, to an economy that has rather allowed untaxed, corrupting vice crime to flourish and find strong footing in a displaced working class, poisoning too many young people who once would have become autonomous and successful adults, with an encroachment of truly toxic social pollutants like addiction, that maim far more than any of the worst by-products of any smokestack industry,
As a small subsistence farmer, I also find it ironic that there is a serious impetus to prevent cows from belching or passing gas, a great deal of it from people who have say 7 car families (with one for the maid), and live in palatial splendor while exerting a hegemony on social goods from decent educations and access to technology to affordable fun for children, and o the enrichment opportunities of art, sport, and humanities, while the production of goods both material and social has moved to countries where regulation is almost non-existent, and maquiladoras and the ilk serve the dual roles of feeding the demand for snuff movies while creating mini-Bhopals.
Anyway the point is only we oldsters remember. Many of us worked in blue collar jobs, and most were part of the periphery of the positive benefits they brought to cities and lives. CITGO is not simply a fossil fuel sign, it is a vestige harbinger of the freedom and the mobility , both social and locally historic, that worked to produce tangible benefits and products for the teeming, thriving, vital, city of Boston's diverse neighborhoods. And again, to the sharing of sport with all of a community's denizens, not just the privileged few. Just my eldster's opinion.
It's not that it's a oil and gas company. Oil and gas companies aren't nearly as evil as popular sentiment wants them to be, its that it's the Venezuelan State oil company. Chavez has long been an enemy of the United States of America...it might as well be a hammer and sickle up there, or a swastika really. It just shows how generally uninformed the public can be.It would be cool to see the sign preserved as a landmark; but indeed the Venezuala connection makes the decision less clear.
It's not that it's a oil and gas company. Oil and gas companies aren't nearly as evil as popular sentiment wants them to be, its that it's the Venezuelan State oil company. Chavez has long been an enemy of the United States of America...it might as well be a hammer and sickle up there, or a swastika really. It just shows how generally uninformed the public can be.
Yeah. Which is why I mentioned the Venezuala connection, and nothing about the industry represented by the sign.It's not that it's a oil and gas company. Oil and gas companies aren't nearly as evil as popular sentiment wants them to be, its that it's the Venezuelan State oil company. Chavez has long been an enemy of the United States of America...it might as well be a hammer and sickle up there, or a swastika really. It just shows how generally uninformed the public can be.
His spirit and symbols survive...Chavez has been dead for 4 years.
It wasn't your comments I was getting at. You're in Wyoming...you understand.Yeah. Which is why I mentioned the Venezuala connection, and nothing about the industry represented by the sign.
That's what they want you to think!Chavez has been dead for 4 years.