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Love or Hate The Pepsi-Cola Sign
By
Jen Chung
Published Feb 10, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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By
Jen Chung
Published Feb 10, 2007
Modified Mar 7, 2008
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Most New Yorkers love the Pepsi-Cola sign in Long Island City. But the for the new Queens West residents, the neon can be annoying. The NY Times spoke to tenants who live behind the sign:
Like many of his neighbors in this new glass high-rise in Long Island City, Queens, [Yo Han] Cho is a newcomer to New York. When he first moved into his “humble room,” as he calls it, he did not quite understand.
“I was like, what is this sign doing in front of my apartment?” said Mr. Cho, 25, who was born in Seoul, South Korea, and educated at a boarding school in Scotland. One of his roommates, an accountant originally from Mumbai, was downright irritated.
“I would rather not have that, by choice,” said the roommate, Arif Chiba, who is also 25.
Before we could yell "Oh, boo hoo, get over yourself!" to the article, we were touched by how the story is also about newcomers to the city getting used to its charms and quirks - including living behind a bottle cap on a sign. Cho says the sign doesn't bother him anymore. Yay!
Developer Rockrose paid Pepsi $20 million for the waterfront site in 2003 and agreed to preserve and move the sign as part of the deal. NY State called Rockrose a "Preferred Developer" after it announced its $1 billion-3,000 unit development in Queens West back in 2001.
Top photograph from behind the Pepsi-Cola sign by Dirk Paessler on Flickr; bottom photograph of the sign and new towers from the Manhattan side by Brian at New York Daily Photo, where there's a nice description of the sign's history
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Jen Chung
Jen Chung is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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