# Leave the Citgo sign alone, you grandstanding jingoist schmuck! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [September 24, 2006, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909 "2006-09-24T00:55:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Contrapuntal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e274bd/32.png) [@Contrapuntal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Contrapuntal)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 11:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/21 "2006-09-24T11:16:38Z")
[QUOTE=elucidator] Now matter how fast you run, the wierdness runs faster. [/QUOTE] Permission to use as needed? ---
**Author:** ![What\_Exit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/what_exit/32/10652_2.png) [@What\_Exit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/What_Exit)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/22 "2006-09-24T13:20:24Z")
[QUOTE=EddyTeddyFreddy] :dubious: Depends whether they’ve been feeding it on Fenway Franks. [/QUOTE] Those are the ones that they don’t sell in October? 😉 Why is a Gas Station sign so cherished? I have never understood that. The lights in Wrigley I understood. The loss of the facade at Yankee Stadium I understood. You still have your green monster and crazy dimensions. Why is a Citgo sign so important, or are they planning to replace it with a Starbucks sign, then I would be forced to agree with you. Is this akin to the minor but vocal protest that Yankees fans made when they replaced our Cracker Jacks with Fiddle Faddle a few seasons back? Or do you equate it to the Lights at Wrigley? OR is it simple outrage that another dopey politician seems to be turning debate into the sign into an updated version of Freedom Fries? I can really agree with the last one being beneath contempt. Jim ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 1:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/23 "2006-09-24T13:20:58Z")
As always, freak freely. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/24 "2006-09-24T13:41:43Z")
[QUOTE=Sublight] We’ve caught an imposter! A spy from New York in our very midst! Into the Charles with him! [/QUOTE] Your location says “Tokyo”. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/25 "2006-09-24T13:44:23Z")
[QUOTE=Robot Arm] Your location says “Tokyo”. [/QUOTE] You can take the Red Sox fan out of Boston, but you can’t take the Fenway Frank out of his paws. :dubious: Wait, that’s not… ---
**Author:** ![Menocchio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9de053/32.png) [@Menocchio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Menocchio)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/26 "2006-09-24T14:48:54Z")
[QUOTE=Sublight] We’ve caught an imposter! A spy from New York in our very midst! Into the Charles with him! [/QUOTE] I plead guilty, your honor, and throw myself on the mercy of the court. I am a Masshole and a Sox fan, but it was late and I was tired. ---
**Author:** ![Sublight](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@Sublight](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sublight)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/27 "2006-09-24T15:23:06Z")
[QUOTE=Robot Arm] Your location says “Tokyo”. [/QUOTE] Originally from Stoneham. ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/28 "2006-09-24T15:32:24Z")
My grandmonther used to live on the 23rd floor of an apartment building on Boylston street, with a west-facing view. I used to be mesmerized by that damn sign, and this was back in the 1970s, when it was still fairly new and fully functional. I’m glad to hear it’s been refurbished. [Here’s CITGO’s page on the sign.](http://www.citgo.com/AboutCITGO/BostonSign.jsp) If Boston’s still the same Boston I left 9 years ago, the driver of any wrecking crane approaching that sign is in for a world of hurt. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/29 "2006-09-24T15:34:51Z")
Five years ago, this would have worked, but big time and downtown. When Elmer Fudd was still The Leader, they could have gotten huge mileage out of this. Hell, they would have torn down the Citgo sign and started working on the GW Bush Freedom Center, or some such rot. Now, they’re only hoping to stir outrage to lend a patina of dignity to a failure. Doesn’t look like its selling. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/30 "2006-09-24T16:37:18Z")
[QUOTE=EddyTeddyFreddy] Hey, do a Christo-style wrap of City Hall? Great idea! Place is an eyesore anyway, unless your taste runs to brutalist [upside-down ziggurats.](http://66.230.220.70/images/post/medieval-boston/07a.jpg) [/QUOTE] That so obviously says “1970s-80s Public Building”… did they sell them in _kits_? And does this mean the distinguished gentleman from the Council is willing to allow that if the government changes hands in '08, we may erase all traces of the Haliburton corporation from the land? ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/31 "2006-09-24T16:46:15Z")
[QUOTE=JRDelirious] That so obviously says “1970s-80s Public Building”… did they sell them in _kits_? [/QUOTE] Actually, it was built in the mid-sixties. I.M. Pei, who designed the rest of the plaza it sits on, is often blamed for it, but I just found out it was designed by three Columbia University professors. ---
**Author:** ![waterj2](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/858c86/32.png) [@waterj2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/waterj2)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/32 "2006-09-24T17:21:32Z")
I’ve always heard that City Hall was designed by two architecture professors (Kallman & McKinnell), who had never actually worked as architects before and won an open competition to design a new city hall. It pretty much became the prototype for a million hideous public buildings. The company they formed was Kallman McKinnell & Knowles, and is now Kallman McKinnell & Wood. They’re still in business, designing stuff that looks [pretty](http://www.kmwarch.com/Projsheets/brooke_projsheet11.htm) [decent](http://www.kmwarch.com/Projsheets/wtwest_projsheet11.htm), IMHO. That crap about the Citgo sign is just stupid. ---
**Author:** ![scotandrsn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@scotandrsn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scotandrsn)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/33 "2006-09-24T17:35:40Z")
Looking for more info on Jerry McDermott and this issue, I found [This lovely blog entry](http://confessionalpoet.typepad.com/grand_mental_station/2006/09/utter_douchebag.html) > [@](#): > > …But this…when is this bullshit going to end? Honestly. When is the whole “Freedom Fries” right-wing answer to “PC” terminology, which they bitch so endlessly about when finger-pointing at the left, going to just fucking die the painful death it deserves? > > \ > > I mean, five years ago terrorists destroyed a landmark, and that’s what started this whole mess. Now we have this nutcase lobbying to destroy a beloved landmark in his own city–or the terrorists win. > > Because, you know, taking down the Citgo sign will really change the fact that the US remains the largest importer of Venezuelan oil in the world. That’ll really hit Chavez right in the pocketbook, you fucking jackass. Oh, and thanks for wasting taxpayers’ dollars proving you’re an idiot. ---
**Author:** ![Lilairen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8491ac/32.png) [@Lilairen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lilairen)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/34 "2006-09-24T18:45:54Z")
My mother says that when she was in labor with me (in the Boston Lying-In, now Brigham and Women’s) the women on that side of the hospital timed their contractions by the Citgo sign. ---
**Author:** ![ENugent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4af34b/32.png) [@ENugent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ENugent)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/35 "2006-09-24T19:35:37Z")
I have the Citgo sign on my class ring. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/36 "2006-09-24T19:46:33Z")
You know, I’m not given to such expressions of approval, but I heartily welcome this OP with a standing ovation of left-handed golf claps. ---
**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/37 "2006-09-24T19:51:43Z")
[QUOTE=ENugent] I have the Citgo sign on my class ring. [/QUOTE] I know this girl at the gym who has an awesome Ford tattoo. Are you single? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/38 "2006-09-24T19:59:53Z")
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso] I know this girl at the gym who has an awesome Ford tattoo. Are you single? [/QUOTE] Where is the…come to think of it, never mind. ---
**Author:** ![ENugent](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/4af34b/32.png) [@ENugent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ENugent)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/39 "2006-09-24T21:43:00Z")
[QUOTE=El Cid Viscoso] I know this girl at the gym who has an awesome Ford tattoo. Are you single? [/QUOTE] Married, not interested in girls. But every person who graduated from MIT in 1990 or later and has a ring has the Citgo sign on it. ---
**Author:** ![LilyoftheValley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/54ee81/32.png) [@LilyoftheValley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LilyoftheValley)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909/40 "2006-09-25T01:44:48Z")
[QUOTE=Lilairen] My mother says that when she was in labor with me (in the Boston Lying-In, now Brigham and Women’s) the women on that side of the hospital timed their contractions by the Citgo sign. [/QUOTE] Huh, I was born there too. Are you in your early 30s? To be precise, what was the labor area where I was born is now a parking garage for Children’s Hospital, though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/leave-the-citgo-sign-alone-you-grandstanding-jingoist-schmuck/373909.md?page=3)