Signs Of The Times

Billboards in Times Square are one thing-they've always been part of the landscape. But in recent years, they've spread like the mange across the rest of the city, adorning every street, the side of every building, blocking the sky with yet one more advertisement for underpants or flavored vodka. You can't look in any direction these days, it seems, without being assaulted by another giant ad.

Over 1000 of those billboards, it turns out, have been put up illegally, without being properly registered with the Buildings Department. But last Thursday, City Council announced that they'd finally closed a massive loophole in a 2001 law, and will now be able to get on with the business of getting these billboards removed.

For just a second there it sounded like good news. At last we'd once again be able to let our eyes drift upward without being told to buy something we didn't need.

Then that second passed, and we remembered where we were, who was mayor, and that when those illegal billboards are removed, they'll be replaced in a matter of minutes by legal billboards, probably for the Olympics.