One day, sometime after the Iraq invasion, I was coming back into New York City on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, one of the major routes into the city if you want to go to Brooklyn or downtown Manhattan, and I saw facing the road a large billboard reading "Worst President Ever." It was immediately a fixture in my life. I went down to the street where it was in Williamsburg soon after and looked up at it. It was actually pretty hard to see from the street- but it was perfect for the in-bound traffic on the highway. No logo, no bla bla.com. Just the words. In the dark days of 2003 and 2004 it was like the new statue of liberty to me. She'd always had her back to the city anyways, and then, after 9/11, you weren't even allowed to visit her anymore.
I'd usually forget about the sign, until I was once again on a bus back into the city, then I'd look for it, and there it would be. I could be thousands of miles away and the sign would be there, I knew, making people happy at 4 in the morning as they drove by, at 7 am, all day and night. It was there when the 2004 Republican National Convention crawled into town. I imagine the conventioneers laughing smugly at the sign, others gritting their teeth at it. Or gnashing their fangs.
Then it was gone. I only noticed a few months ago. I called the bar that sits below it today and asked them where it went. The guy who answered said that the bar had put the sign up but the landlord wanted it taken down "for some reason."
It made me sad, but I don't need the sign quite as much anymore. The sign had its Pisgah sight from the roof of the pool, and it cannot come with us to the land of milk and honey (being a little optomistic, and so were the Israelites, if you think about it).
I can't imagine how many people the sign affected, how many people were inspired by it. It will be missed.
http://www.unionpool.net/...