The Felling of the Hoagie City Billboard

The big billboard was everyone's poster child for urban blight.

by Bruce Schimmel

The big billboard at 40th and Lancaster was everyone's poster child for urban blight. Hiding the historic façade of the West Philadelphia Title and Trust Bank, it promoted sneakers and booze, and depressed the neighborhood for more than 50 years.

A photo of the so-called Hoagie City billboard hung in Mary Tracy's SCRUB office, the anti-blight advocates. Its image graced the walls of the People's Emergency Center (PEC), the neighborhood's development group.

So when the Hoagie City billboard finally came down last January, neighbors were so thrilled that some have offered to replace its big missing clock for free.

OMINOUS SIGN: This billboard at Lancaster Avenue at 40th is gone, but other neighborhoods won't be so lucky. : courtesy Kise, montage, Straw & Kolodner and Photo (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

But don't think that big billboards will be coming down in your neighborhood. The felling of the Hoagie City billboard was essentially a fluke. And even worse: The city is effectively blocking similar attempts to remove other big billboards, from Mount Airy to Mayfair.

The billboard only came down because of clever work of SCRUB volunteer lawyer Howard Levin. Levin represented Sam Chen and his wife, who bought the old bank about a year and a half ago. Clear Channel owned the billboard, and the Texas-based company had just signed an agreement with the Chens for $400 a month. Still, Levin persuaded the Chens to forgo the monthly income, because as Sam Chen put it, "We wanted to do something good for the neighborhood."

And because it was a good investment. PEC sweetened the deal by promising to spend some $50,000 to renovate the façade. With new investment coming, including $13 million recently from Pennrose Properties, PEC wanted to protect a neighborhood on the rise.

The community was ready, Chen was willing, but Clear Channel wasn't interested. Because that $400 a month could bring in (some experts estimate) up to $5,000 a month.

But as luck would have it, the rains came. As Levin tells it, he and Chen were talking on the phone when the owner mentioned that whenever it rained, the billboard dumped a deluge on his front steps.

Delighted, Levin ran to Clear Channel with warnings about slip-and-fall lawsuits. And so, says Levin, the billboard came down.

Clear Channel's local president, George Kauker, declined comment, except to say that they received less than $5,000 a month for Chen's billboard, and that it was strictly "a business decision."

If that sounds a bit indifferent, it probably is. Billboard companies don't have to care, because the city recently handed them all the cards.

In August 2006, John Street signed off on a scheme that grandfathered big billboards in exchange for the removal of some 950 smaller signs. After the little signs came down last March, SCRUB sued the city in Federal court, and that suit is pending.

Meanwhile, the city has turned a blind eye to Clear Channel's newest forays in public space, including new electronic billboards on I-95 — which experts estimate put $25,000 into Clear Channel's pocket. So what do we, the public, make from selling our public space? How much do neighborhoods get back for big billboards?

The city's cut per billboard — whether on the expressway or in a neighborhood — is just $50. A year. That's a sweet deal for someone. But a big, bad sign indeed, if our new mayor lets this corporate blight stand.

(bruce@schimmel.com)