Is it me?...

… or is there something that’s not quite in the holiday spirit about those bright orange sandwich boards that recently cropped up around the neighborhood advertising fish? Sometime last week they suddenly appeared at various street corners along E. Madison and on certain residential side streets, covered with protective plastic and weighted down with concrete blocks. What’s the story?

“I’m just a fisherman trying to make a living,” says the perpetrator. “These signs are tremendously effective for a very low cost.” That’s why they’re there.

There are fewer signs around Madison Park today, however, than there were a week ago. That’s because of complaints. According to the fisherman, who reports that he places these signs in selected neighborhoods all over the City, the only neighborhood that he’s ever received a complaint from is ours. He used to live in Madison Park, he says, and wonders why it is only in our community that people have gotten torqued. We’re just naturally curmudgeonly down here, I guess.

He promises that the signs are temporary and will be removed within the week. If anyone has a complaint about a specific sign, he will get that sign down sooner, he says.

Maybe there’s really nothing wrong (other than the illegality) with putting up a few signs here and there to advertise your wares in the Park. But when it comes to this kind of thing there's clearly more than one school of thought. There are your “live and let-live” Madison Parkers; and then there are your “standards are standards” Madison Parkers. This all reminds me of a story someone told me about a yard sale she had in the neighborhood a few years ago. As the sale was underway, one of her neighbors came by and delivered a gentle admonishment: “Really, my dear, this kind of thing is just not done in this neighborhood.”

Well, of course it is. That and orange fish-for-sale signs.

Too garish for the Park?

The refined sensibilities of some Madison Park residents have been sorely tested by the oversize neon sign installed earlier this month by “Washington’s Newest Bank” (aka Chase Manhattan). Believing that the New York-based bank has violated our community’s tasteful-sign standards, they reportedly took their complaints directly to Chase last week, requesting that the sign be downsized and possibly de-neoned. The issue was important enough to be discussed at the Madison Park Community Council meeting this week, with the decision taken to formalize a request that Chase cease and desist.

Chase’s offense was also discussed at the Madison Park Business Association meeting today. It is the MPBA which has the sign standard of which I am told Chase is clearly in violation. However, the standard is a voluntary one; in other words, enforceable only through community pressure.

For awhile this afternoon it looked as though the complaints were being heeded. A sign-company truck rolled up to the branch, the offending sign was removed, and for a brief moment some had hope that a New York bank could actually react to our community’s input.

However, it was not to be. A new metal facing was installed above the branch to cover the bricks (which had been scarred previously by WaMu’s awning), and the offending sign was promptly reinstalled. In fact, the sign now stands out even more than it did before.

It remains to be seen whether Chase will eventually back down, but there is at least one precedent for a big bank responding to the community’s complaints. According to MPBA member Lola McKee (Madison Park Hardware), many years ago Bank of America put up an offending sign but reversed course after the violation was pointed out.

Chase’s sign is not the only one in the neighborhood that is legal under City code but still in violation of the MPBA standard. Also on the blacklist is the new Fitness Together sign, next to Bing’s.

For some, the sign issue may seem like a pretty unimportant battle to occupy people’s time. But for others, such as Council President Ken Myrabo, taking a stand has to do with preserving the character of the neighborhood and keeping our little piece of Madison Street from becoming another Lake City Way. Now that’s a cause a lot of us can get behind.