Miami is about to get a taste of Times Square, now that the city’s commissioners have given their okay to a plan that would erect a pair of towering electronic signs.
Even though the project faced vehement opposition from some residents, the commissioners still voted 4-1 to approve the billboards, which would reach nearly 500 feet into the Miami sky.
The reason? Money. The billboards will provide the city with at least $2 million a year in fees.
In addition to the advertising towers, developers are planning a parking garage and a retail center in the area.
Miami Commission approves skyscraper-size billboards [Miami Herald]
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Munnay munnay munnnnaaay, MUNNAAAAY.
Not the exact Banksy quote, but it applies completely as related to this article:
“The people who run our cities dont understand graffiti because they think nothing has the right to exist unless it makes a profit.
The people who truly deface our neighborhoods are the companies that scrawl giant slogans across buildings and buses trying to make us feel inadequate unless we buy their stuff.
Any advertisement in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours, it belongs to you. It’s yours to take, rearrange and re use.Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head”
This is an easy position to take for people who aren’t in a position of dealing with the imminent bankruptcy of many of our great cities.
It’s easy to say “no.” It’s harder to come up with plans to raise hundreds of millions of dollars (or to cut city budgets by as much). Even harder when no plan can generate majority support among local populations or city coucils.
What hurts quality of life more? Obnoxious billboards, or higher taxes, or reductions in essential services like police and fire departments?
I’m not sure that was the whole point. There are ways ads and graffiti could co-exist.
We could end these bogus wars that aren’t making us safer and save gazillions.
What is it that we’re doing? Like, aren’t we giving Pakistan aide… and Pakistan is giving money to the Taliban in Afghanistan… The Taliban is using that money to fight us… and we’re spending money to fight them.
So, it’s the US vs the US. Seems to me that might be the plan to get those hundreds of millions.
Now, if you will excuse me, this can of spray paint and I have a date in Miami.
And yet another of the 1980′s Sci-Fi writers’ prophecies come to pass…
it does look a bit like Blade Runner filtered through The Birdcage…
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the first and last time you will ever see those two movies together in the same sentence.
that sounds like a challenge
Off to film a gritty, distopian remake of The Birdcage, only set in the future, Nathan Lane’s character is actually a Replicant. A gay Replicant. Made by Apple. Robin Williams’ character is a gay Replicant manufactured by Microsoft.
The big twist at the end is that the Senator character is actually a Replicant himself, running Linux.
Awesome! But it still made my head hurt. I think I need a flow chart.
Consider it a plea for sanity.
I see a new meme of Bladerunner/Birdcage mashups.
what is 500 ft. advertising is all about? Getting the message in your head. See it often enough, your favorite memory of Miami might be the 500 ft. Blue Man group ad.
So why not eliminate the middleman, as it were? just inject the damn things right into our thoughts and be done with it.
Wonder how those will hold up during a hurricane
They won’t. They’ll probably beg for money from the city to repair them.
I’m pretty sure these are nothing more than a “kick-me” sign when it comes to hurricanes.
Exactly…all we need is more flying objects…
As if I needed another reason not to move to Florida.
Have fun with that Miami. We just got rid of the 500ft tall ipod and movie posters draped over the side of buildings here in Hollywoodland.
And all the Photoshopped people lived happily ever after in their towering billboard forest. The end.
i wondered about this too! def not real people in this pic.
meanwhile here in NorCal Toyota “sponsored” a flower Prius billboard
“”Marin County has had a ban against billboard advertising since the 1970′s,” noted Franks. And the flowers, which depict a car that resembles a Prius, crossing a bridge that resembles the Golden Gate, are sponsored by Toyota.”
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/north_bay&id=7375295
Jeebus…leave it to Marin County. Technically it’s not a billboard, and generally you’d think Marin-ites would be pro-Prius. But, since it’s now cool to jump on the anti-Toyota bandwagon, of course Marin will be in on the Toyota bashing. So typical of that area. It makes me sad that I’m from there.
In our defense (as a Marinite) It’s hideously ugly and the flowers are non-native (read= extra water needed) AND Toyota put it up right after the big recalls were announced.
The super Marin stuff that’s been going on of late that I DO hate is the attempt to ban ice-cream trucks from parking w/i 1500 ft of the High School b/c apparently Marin kids just can’t control themselves and might get fat. It’s been all the rage in the letters to the editor in the IJ.
ALSO now I’m filled with intense curiosity about the possibility that I know you, which is silly b/c Marin ain’t so small…
*sigh* Again with the lack of personal accountability. Except that’s not limited to Marin county – that’s a USA-wide pandemic.
As for the non-native flowers, I can see the burden of the extra water, but if Toyota’s paying for it, I don’t get the big deal, unless it leads to water rationing for everyone else.
And, I’ve not lived in either Marin or Sonoma counties for a while. So the chance that we know each other are minimal.
And I agree that it’s not a billboard per se. But why dig up the dirt and all? If you’re willing to donate for the Adopt-A-Highway sign, then just contribute to the fund and you get your sign. Bette Midler has an AAH sign on the LIE or GCP here in NYC and we don’t have her singing on the side of the road.
I always thought that AAH was about keeping the road clean, not gussying up the dirt around it.
As to Miami getting in on the act of tall billboards, Times Square doesn’t have 500-ft tall free-standing billboards. We put ‘em on the side of the skyscrapers. Amazing what one can do with tall buildings.
And I’d rather walk under a ladder on Friday the 13th than be in the area of those Miami signs during any storm. Lyric-wise, I’m going with Blowin’ In The Wind.
Watch out for the 500-foot Dan Le Batard billboard!
Makes me think of Treehouse of Horror VI.
http://i32.tinypic.com/bdsbw0.png
Wow… and here I just moved from Miami…
Alrighty then, lets start the suggestion thread for what we could put up there to drive people nuts. Sarah Palin, Akmadinnerjacket, …… ?
For the metrically-inclined, the billboards are about 150 m tall.
Go for what they have in Atlantic City
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzkrbnByY-k
Oh right, because the tourism doesn’t pay the salary of the $250K/yr Miami Beach police officers? Because Miami hasn’t had a non-felon elected official in years? Right. Of course.
500 ft seems a bit much all in one chunk .. perhaps cut them down to size, say, 125 ft ea., discount original planned costs for reduced size, yet only moderately and round it out (upwards), that way w/ 4 signs out of ea. one the city should be able to make even more loot that way!
WHAT? You mean the Kardashians haven’t increased Miami’s economy?
I can imagine a couple of group windsurfing efforts should the need ever arise. 20 people to one billboard.
2 million in revenue for 2 billboards…wow….they may use my backyard if they like as long as I get a percentage.
Taking advantage of the only beautiful thing in Florida – the sky.
I really want to know if people really think that billboards are effective ways to advertise anything other than sa special event, those are the only ones that I pay attention to especially here in Miami…I see the Coca Cola, Brahma, and I just think what a waste of money…I think we are over advertising as a society I have not seen a commercial that would push me to buy anything or at least introduce a new brand to me; wait I lie I would buy Old Spice stuff so they can keep doing their hilarious commercials but not because I want their products.
Here is a great article from harper’s magazine in 1950 on why Billboards should not exist:
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/electronic-publications/stay-free/admap/howardgossage.html
1960, not 50. My bad
Down there could be anybody’s guess what language they’ll be in….English, Spanish, Creole.