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ABC-TV ad covers the Gowanus sky

Reader Ted Houghton writes: I was just looking out the window, holding my newborn and enjoying one of baby's first sunsets over the Gowanus expressway, when I noticed a dark blotch in the sky. On closer inspection, it was a giant floating billboard being towed by a helicopter advertising an ABC-TV program.  It was gigantic -- you had to wonder how the helicopter got it off the ground.
 
The size of the thing slowed the helicopter to a crawl, better to catch the eye of the tens of thousands of commuters parked on the Gowanus during rush hour.  Being so stationary, it was as if a 40-story billboard had been hoisted smack dab in the middle of my golden hour.
 
Though it is desperately post-industrial, the landscape that complements our Brooklyn sunsets is decidedly beautiful.  I even like the way the red sun shines through the latticwork of the old Kentile K sign. But this was just a blotch. Four of them together would block out a big portion of evening sky.

In conservative methodology, they would constitute a "taking" of my sunset (ah, but, sir, you do not own the sunset, so there is no loss to you, I can hear the lawyers now...).

Maybe this was the one-time only brainchild of some 23 year-old in ABC's marketing department or maybe it's the beginning of the end of western civilization (again). I don't know.  It was just kind of surprisingly depressing, so I thought I'd let you know.

Posted by Carrie McLaren on 02/24/2005 | Permalink

Comments

That is bad, but people have envisioned worse: it took an act of Congress to prevent a company from launching mile-long billboards into space,

Posted by: Charles | Feb 24, 2005 2:22:10 PM

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