CITGO sign in Kenmore Square, Boston

A 60-foot by 60-foot advertising sign in most cities would be just another urban eyesore. In Boston, it has somehow become a much-loved, iconic landmark.

When Red Sox players look past the left-field wall in Fenway Park, past the Green Monster scoreboard and the high-up bleacher seats, they’re greeted by the industrial landmark that is Boston’s illuminated CITGO sign.

St. Louis has the Arch. Chicago has the Millennium Park Ferris wheel. We’ve got (in addition to all the colonial and Revolutionary War landmarks) the CITGO sign.

Erected in 1940 in Kenmore Square on top of a Cities Service office at 660 Beacon St., the sign  can be seen, especially at night, for miles. The building now houses the Boston University bookstore, across from the Kenmore Square T station near the intersection of Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue

The aging gasoline-company sign was slated for demolition in the late 1970s. But residents – many of them Sox fans – protested strongly and politicians got on board. There were strong calls to give the sign official landmark status. CITGO (the company name after 1965) took notice and sign was saved.

Except for the presence of Fenway Park three blocks away, Kenmore Square could be considered a BU-student reservation. Students and university officials often give directions to visitors based on where they are in relation to the double-faced sign. Runners in the yearly Boston Marathon use it as a close-to-the-end guidepost.

Until a million-dollar renovation in 2005, the sign had neon tubing that, if uncoiled, would have stretched for more than five miles. Light-emitting diodes, LEDs, replaced the old neon so the red, white and blue sign is brighter for dusk-to-dawn illumination and power consumption is greatly reduced.

When, in 2006, the president of Venezuela strongly criticized then-president George W. Bush, a Boston councilman urged that the sign be removed. The U.S. Citgo Petroleum Corp. is a subsidiary of Venezuela’s state oil company. Nothing came of the councilman’s suggestion.
 

- by Dan Sheridan, Boston Reporter for HelloMetro  (Click to leave a message)

Dan Sheridan

Dan Sheridan is an editor, reporter and media specialist with a background in newspapers, magazines and publishing. He has reported from Tokyo, Singapore and Bangkok and wrote Access Boston, the popular guidebook, from 2002 to 2008.