Hamptons Officials Announce New Gamut in Shinnecock Billboard Battle
The Hamptons Municipal Board announced plans this week to build a 120-foot billboard adjacent to the much-contested 61-foot Shinnecock billboard on Route 27 in Hampton Bays. According to Municipal Board president Fred Marzipan, the move is a last ditch effort to thwart the Shinnecocks’ digital billboard, which they installed in May and have refused to take down, in spite of court orders and the opinion of many that the large screen, which displays advertising and messages such as, “Don’t Text and Drive,” is an “eyesore.”
“To erect our much larger billboard, we will have to build it on the existing road, but the plan will also move the highway to avoid it,” Marzipan says. “Ultimately, we have the jurisdiction to do this, and we expect our larger, more tasteful digital billboard to make theirs redundant, obsolete and overwhelmingly pointless.”
The Hamptons Police Department has been tasked with rerouting traffic around the new billboard structure, and securing the area while work crews install it. Even without the added inconvenience of diverting the road, the Shinnecock billboard caused quite a bit of traffic after its installation last month, but Hamptons Police officials say they have a plan to keep cars moving.
On Thursday, the Municipal Board released a digital render of how the new billboard will look alongside the existing Shinnecock billboard (see above), and it’s conspicuously larger.
“Our billboard will be nearly twice as tall and at least twice as bright,” Marzipan points out, noting that the the Municipal Board has already agreed on a series of images to display on the digital screen, including beach scenes and photographs of local icons, such as Linda Scott’s “Stargazer” sculpture, the Montauk Lighthouse, various historic East End windmills and more. The Board will also display messages and community announcements in large text.
“We’re going to put an end to this eyesore problem once and for all, and there’s nothing anyone can do to stop us,” Marzipan says.
Vetted Hamptons Resources
