This post appeared in a previous blog and is here for posterity’s sake.

Union Square Clock, Solved, originally uploaded by plemeljr
Just to let the record stand, we were right (thanks to a tip from Jared) about the Union Square Clock Mystery, as confirmed by my own reporting and the Gray Lady. This is actually old news – I think Curbed had a similar photo a few weeks ago – which is (like, totally) about 4.5 blog years ago. I had taken the photo above for awhile, but I had lost the memory card.
Just like I thought the banner they put up is both obvious and ugly. Letting viral marketing and word of mouth develop would have created more “buzz” for the Olympics, instead of creating a banner which treats every New Yorker as a dumb bumkin, is typical of the Bloomberg administration.
Have we come to a point in culture where the message has to be so explicit? So obvious? Or Ugly?