But how will we know what reality show to watch or strip club to hit?

As the Times reports:

[F]or the month of January, Show Media, a Las Vegas company that owns about half the cones adorning New York City’s taxis, has decided to give commerce a rest. Instead, roughly 500 cabs will display a different kind of message: artworks by Shirin Neshat, Alex Katz and Yoko Ono.

The project is costing Show Media about $100,000 in lost revenue, but John Amato, one of Show’s owners and a contemporary-art fan, said: “I thought it was time to take a step back. January’s a slow month. I could have cut my rates but instead I decided to hit the mute button and give something back to the city.”

Uh, gee, thanks?

And now, my collection of the newish American Apparel ads

The dialogue balloon coming from her rear says, "Hello my name is objectified flesh..."

Searching for the truth about the cats and dogs mural on Avenue A

Back in the fall, we devoted several posts to Chico's "spay/neuter" mural on Avenue A near 12th Street that was painted over for a Kobe Bryant video game ad.

Interestingly enough, Media magazine reported on the story. (Thanks to the reporter, Christine Champagne, who reached out to me for the article.) Here are portions of the piece (you can find the whole thing right here):

For nine years, cats and dogs loomed large over a parking lot on Avenue A as part of an iconic Advocates for Animals mural on the side of a tenement building in Manhattan's East Village. Created by well-known local muralist Chico, the mural tugged at the heartstrings with an assortment of animals — including a sweet kitty with pleading eyes and a trusty German Shepherd — urging local residents to spay and neuter their pets, and providing a number to call for assistance.

But the mural, which can be seen in the opening moments of the 2005 film "Winter Passing," was whitewashed this fall and replaced with an ad for 2K Sports' NBA 2K10 basketball video game, and now NBA superstar Kobe Bryant looms large on the wall.

For her part, Irene Muschel, a social worker and animal activist who runs Advocates for Animals, and hired Chico to paint the mural back in April 2000, didn't even know it had been covered up until MEDIA contacted her.

Muschel claimed that the landlord of 189 Avenue A, Desides Weinberg, was contractually obligated — "We had a legal contract drawn up by an attorney and signed by me, Chico and the landlord" — to keep the Animals for Advocates mural up for 10 years. If that's the case, the mural should have stayed in place until April 2010. "About a year ago, the landlord that signed the contract called me about how he needed income, and he said there was an advertiser who wanted to put something up there, and would I go along with it," Muschel recalls. "I said no, actually, and I had contacted a lawyer. But then it just faded away."

For his part, Weinberg repeatedly insisted that the contract Muschel speaks of was a "phony contract." He also faulted Muschel for not properly maintaining the mural, pointing out that chunks of it had fallen off the side of the building over the years.

One has to wonder: Did New York-based KD&E Advertising, which did the media buy for the NBA 2K10 campaign, realize the ad would replace a mural that had special meaning to East Village residents? KD&E did not return calls or respond to efforts made to reach someone at the agency on MEDIA's behalf by a representative for 72andsunny, the creative agency on the campaign.

Muschel says she is not going to pursue the matter legally or otherwise, instead choosing to focus on the good the mural did. "The mural helped a great many animals get spayed and neutered and provided answers on a wide variety of animal issues to people who called," she muses. "It did its work."

Previously on EV Grieve:
NBA ad takes over

A fine spot for advertsing

On 12th Street near Avenue B.

Welcome to Hedonism

Did you see these ads along Second Avenue near Sixth Street (or was it Fourth Street?) for Hedonism Resorts in Jamaica?



Per their Web site:

Sleep in. Stay up late. Give up counting calories. Have a drink before noon. Give up mineral water. Dine in shorts. Talk to strangers. Don't make your bed. Go skinny dipping. Don't call your mother. Let your hair down. Don't pay for anything. Don't leave a tip. Be your beautiful self ...

Hedonism is a sandbox for your inner child, nourishment for the mind, body, spirit and soul. Pleasure comes in many forms. Choose one. Or two. Or more. And with absolutely everything included in one upfront price you never have to think about money. Not even tips. Just what to do next. And when.

Do we really need to travel to Hedonism Resorts to see activities like this?

The paper chase

I love newspapers and spend far too much time fretting about their demise... In any event, I've been intrigued by the use of newspapers in the ads atop cabs for A&E's show "Hoarders." I never did get a photo of one, though. However, Ask a Copywriter had these shots....



Ask a Copywriter also nabbed this shot of an ad abandoned on the sidewalk...

What a view!

An ad for the Top of the Rock Observation Deck on 12th Street and Avenue B...

Space for Target now stumping for Vans

At Avenue A and St. Mark's Place.

May!



Today!



Previously on EV Grieve:
Goodbye yellow brick ad

Kind of a funny public service announcement at a Cemusa shelter where buses idle like five minutes waiting to board passengers

Avenue C near Seventh Street.

Ad takeovers

As the Times reports, there was "a bizarre cat-and-mouse game" on billboards across the city yesterday.

One group of artists and activists spread across Lower Manhattan, transforming innumerous wheat-pasted posters — the ones that readily sprout over scaffolding — into their own canvas.

They would whitewash the posters and then create their own work, or allow anti-advertising advocates to spread their own messages.

But just as quickly as they whitewashed and put up art, workers arrived to put up new posters where the artists had obscured the old ones.

And so it went, back and forth, with drama, confrontation and even a few arrests by day's end.

The takeover efforts were organized by an artist, Jordan Seiler, who founded a group called the Public Ad Campaign to question and challenge the use of outdoor ads in public areas.

I took the photo here on Seventh Street and First Avenue.

Noted

Per MediaPost:

"The $100 million marketing blitz Yahoo launched two weeks ago to revitalize its brand may be having the opposite effect, according to early consumer feedback. Perception of Yahoo among U.S. adults has fallen steeply since the company kicked off its global campaign centered on the tag line "It's You" on Sept. 28, based on YouGov's BrandIndex, which tracks daily consumer perception of brands. It found Yahoo's buzz score had tumbled from 35.4 on Sept. 22 to 25.5 as of Monday."

Previously on EV Grieve:
I will NOT be commenting on Yahoo!'s new ad campaign

I will NOT be commenting on Yahoo!'s new ad campaign

Like the ad here above the Bowery Bar.

NBA ad takes over

Work on Chico's former "spay/neuter" mural on Avenue A near 12th Street is nearly complete. Here's how it looked last Sunday...



..and now...the NBA video game has come to life.





Previously.

For some reason I know that "House" premieres tonight

I'm really going to miss primary season

Booty Call

Too easy, that headline. Second Avenue near St. Mark's.

Noted

Houston near Avenue B.

And, this is obvious, but the song popped into my head...

Posts that I never got around to posting: Ashlee Simpson-Wentz's transition to TV star going as well as expected

On Third Avenue near 12th Street.

Governors Island ad campaign based on gang film?

On Avenue C.

No, but the slogan reminded me of something! Come out and play....? So close to come out to play....

Bowery Place

The yunnie posturing that takes place Thursday through Sunday on the Bowery often seems like a cheesy melodrama worthy of the CW Televison Network....



...so might as well advertise the revamped "Melrose Place" here.