An ad campaign for some new apartments on Broad Street has left black paint on downtown sidewalks.
17 Broad Street apartments in the 1700 block of Broad is getting ready to open and is pre-leasing.
An official said the advertising team as part of the campaign decided to stencil 17 Broad Now Leasing on a number of sidewalks, including two right in front of the Tivoli Theater. She said, "It is the cool thing to do now in New York."
Nick Wilkinson, Tivoli director, said, "We have been trying to get it off, but it is hard to come off."
The apartment leasing manager said the product was designed to wash away in the next rain. It was placed in a number of locations "two or three days before it was suppose to rain."
It rained, but the paint did not come off.
The official said, "We found that we had been sent the wrong paint. We were suppose to get a chalky one that would easily come off. But we were sent a black paint."
She said, "The company that supplied the paint is going to pay to have it removed. We have hired another company to do it. They are going to put down a compound that will loosen it, then come back and pressure wash it off. The Tivoli signs will be first."
Such stenciled ad signs on city sidewalks are not within the city code.
The sign inspector earlier sent a removal notice to a firm advertising a murder mystery dinner. A local non-profit used a similar sidewalk campaign. That process did not actually use paint. A pressure wash was applied to the stencil and the words were then displayed in the washed area.