About ten years ago, some strange street signs were posted in lower Manhattan. Fairly large, bright color (pink or orange, I recall), firmly attached to lampposts, professionally designed and made of sturdy street-sign metal.
They read NO WHISTLING OR CATCALLS. One had a silhouette of a truck with a guy with a cat-shaped head leaning out the window, and a silhouette woman making a “tut-tut” gesture with her hand (or she may have been giving him the finger). The other had a similar truck, but with the “Not Permitted” bar running through it, and a female jogger.
One was placed on the pedestrian walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge down near the traffic merge at City Hall; the other one was on Chambers Street, near the Church Street intersection. There may have been others, but these were the only two I saw.
They stayed up for over two years, then disappeared just as mysteriously as they arrived.
Does anyone know anything about this? Who made them and put them up? Were there any others? Why the placement in lower Manhattan?..you’d think there’d be areas where more of this sort of harrassment went on. Why did they get taken down? Was this just a NYC thing, or did they show up in other cities?
They were well-made signs, as I said, not cranked out and slapped up by some individual who just got personally sick of kissy noises and comments from truck drivers.
Oh, those things aren’t needed anymore, men no longer whistle or catcall.
I know this for a FACT! When I first moved to New York some 20 years ago, men would whistle at me, yell lewd suggestions and such remarks as “hubba hubba!” and “oh, you kid!” But I have noticed over the past few years that men have stopped leering and whistling as I walk by. This MUST, I can only assume, be due to a sudden attack of good manners on their part.
AlRIGHT, Javaman . . . I admit it . . . It WASN’T 20 years ago that I moved to New York . . . I moved here in 1912, to get a job at Biograph Studios on 14th Street. My friend Gladys Smith introduced me to that nice Mr. Griffith . . . I remember as I strolled by the flatiron building and my skirt wafted up in the breeze, the sidewalk lotharios would go, “Oh, you candy kid!” and “Why do they call her a Gibson Girl?”
I DID IT!!! I TOOK THEM DOWN!!! AND I’M GLAD!! AND I’D DO IT AGAIN!!
::wraps himself in American Flag::
It infringed upon my First Amendment right to yell “mamacita” and other such at the Betties and Shielas as they go struttin’ by. The dames like that kinda thing.
[sub]OK, OK, so I’ve never even been to Manhattan.[/sub]
Maybe it’s just an NYC thing, Ike. No such signs appeared downtown here in Kent ten years ago or at any other time. Of course, I don’t know where they’d put them – they’d have to take down some of the “Watch for Livestock on Road” or “No Pickups over 12 Feet Tall Allowed” signs.
I work my fingers to the bone around here, offering deviled egg recipes and providing information on bebop trombone players and recommending twisted literature and fixing everybody’s ham radios and generally fighting the good fight against ignorance, much like all the other good citizens of Straight Dopeland.
But whenever I ask a lousy question, do I get proper answers? Oh, no. Naught but japes and banter.
Hama’s recipe seemed a little…er…simplistic to me. I believe it’s the Momma Love she puts into her eggs that make them so delightful. That or the fact that she mashes the yolks between her thighs.
No, mine was stolen from a cookbook. And I gave a cite, like the good little boy I am.
Oh, man, are you ever going to feel old. Welcome to dinosaurville.
It more like 14 years ago. Right after the crash. I remember because I had just started on the Street.
It was an art installation, and the lady who did it just put them downtown because that’s where she wanted to do it.
Damned if I can remember her name – she wasn’t exactly of Annie Sprinkle’s Q rating. There was a little blurb about it in the Journal at the time, and I called her to try to get one for my sister’s dorm room, but she wasn’t selling them yet, IIRC.
Lemme rack my brain with alcoho, um, I mean exercise and fresh air this weekend and see if I can remember any more.
Thank you, manny! 465 views of this thread so far, and we’re finally getting somewhere…I knew either you or stuyguy would come through.
Fourteen years ago sounds right, as does “art installation” as opposed to Koch-era Civic Service (which may be an oxymoron).
Lemme try to do an Art Search and dig up more details; I always thought they were pretty cool, too, and wouldn’t mind owning one. In the meanwhile, you jog around Washington Square Park thirty times and get back to us with any other twilit memories.
Ahh, finally my name has been invoked on a thread. I would have joined the fray much sooner but I’ve been buried under IRL obligations.
Of course I remember the signs. The local news media went nuts with the story. Manny is definately on the right track here. It was an “art” installation.
IIRC they were placed near construction projects or other notorious wolfcall locales. The news reporters would approach a construction guy and point to the sign across the street and ask, “What do you think about those?”
I’m pretty sure they also had special, non-removable brackets to prevent easy theft by “art collectors” or pee-oh’ed hardhats. (Also, weren’t they installed really high up the pole for the same reason?)
My guess as to their eventual disappearance? Three theories. 1) They just got stolen/removed by aforementioned collectors/hardhats 2) The permit that the artist had (she had to get permission to hang the things) expired, and she (or the DOT) took them down, or 3) DOT crews probably have standing orders to remove any and all traffic signs that are old, inaccurate or irrelevant. The pink signs probably got weeded out in that process.
Hey, Uke I’m heartbroken that you never commented on my NYTimes piece. [Frownie here.