{"id":9358,"date":"2018-11-17T14:56:17","date_gmt":"2018-11-17T19:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=9358"},"modified":"2018-11-17T15:10:52","modified_gmt":"2018-11-17T20:10:52","slug":"citgo-sign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2018\/11\/17\/citgo-sign\/","title":{"rendered":"Boston Shouldn\u2019t Give Kenmore Square\u2019s Iconic Citgo Sign Landmark Status"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s no question that the Citgo sign that shines above Kenmore Square is one of the landmarks of Boston. But Tuesday\u2019s vote by the Boston Landmarks Commission to grant official landmark status to the sign<\/a> is a mistake. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and the Boston City Council shouldn\u2019t support the move. <\/p>\n

And I say this as someone who was cited in the city\u2019s official report<\/a> as one of the reasons the sign should be made an official city landmark. So I feel a bit responsible.<\/p>\n

They mentioned me because two years ago I ranked the Citgo sign at number 10 on my list of the best public art around the city. And I do still love the billboard.<\/p>\n

The petroleum company says its triangle logo has glowed atop the building at 660 Beacon St. since a corporate rebranding in 1965 (and that the corporation has had a billboard there since 1940). It\u2019s hard to imagine a Red Sox World Series run without the Citgo sign glowing over the top of Fenway Park\u2019s Green Monster. The city would lose some of its sparkle without the sign illuminating the skyline.<\/p>\n

The problem is what Citgo stands for: \u201cgasoline in a variety of grades, as well as a variety of passenger car motor oils and lubricants.\u201d<\/a> And I regret not weighing this more seriously in the past. As the devastation global warming is doing to our communities\u2014to the entire world\u2014becomes ever more clear, it\u2019s long past time to part ways with fossil fuel companies. Giving the Citgo sign official city landmark status sends exactly the wrong message.<\/p>\n

In late October, Boston was named a winner of the Bloomberg American Cities Climate Challenge, including \u201ca support package, valued at up to $2.5 million, to increase low-carbon mobility choices and improve energy performance of Boston’s building sector.\u201d Mayor Walsh said in a press release, “We’re serious about building a more climate-ready Boston. If we’re to be effective in preparing for rising sea levels and more intense storms, we have to accelerate our actions to reduce carbon emissions. Addressing climate change now is critical to ensuring a greener, healthy Boston for future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Quitting our addiction to fossil fuels is terribly difficult\u2014not making the Citgo sign an official city landmark will be the least of it.<\/p>\n

\n

Help Wonderland keep producing our great coverage of local arts, cultures and activisms (and our great festivals) by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, weekly newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting.<\/em><\/p>\n

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There\u2019s no question that the Citgo sign that shines above Kenmore Square is one of the landmarks of Boston. But Tuesday\u2019s vote by the Boston Landmarks Commission to grant official landmark status to the sign is a mistake. Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and the Boston City Council shouldn\u2019t support the move. And I say this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2890,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[105],"tags":[37,480,53],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9358"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9358"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9358\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9365,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9358\/revisions\/9365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2890"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}