Residents keep up the pressure on billboards

By Jefferson Siegel

Nearly 100 people gathered in front of the Gansevoort Hotel Wednesday night, blowing whistles, banging on drums and chanting “Take Them Down!” They returned to the Meatpacking District hotel to protest two large billboards on the hotel that, many say, are more suited for an interstate highway than the tranquil neighborhood.

“They market themselves off of this neighborhood, and yet they’re willing to destroy it by building these eight-story billboards,” said rally organizer Andrew Berman, executive director of the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation.

The crowd was joined by local restaurateur Florent Morellet, who has joined with other local restaurants in refusing to take reservations from the hotel. Also joining in the protest was State Senator Tom Duane.

Duane explained the he came “to show the hotel that after all the work we did to landmark this neighborhood and to make it a place where people would want to come—to help their hotel be a place where people would like to stay—for them to put up signs that ruin the whole ambience of the neighborhood is horrible.”

The crowd stayed for more than an hour as guests arrived for a party for Nylon Magazine and singer Christina Aguilera. Berman, who vowed to return “night after night and day after day until they drop those billboards,” said another protest is planned in the near future.