The giant cockroach is gone, knocked off its perch above City Dock in Annapolis.
Not that I miss it. It was an eyesore that could easily crawl back one day.
Not ’til at least November, I say no, no, no.
Dear readers, allow me to introduce The Banner era of Maryland’s most historic billboard.
“We ... managed to get ad inventory on Dock St, right on the water,” a senior vice president at The Banner messaged me. “Which, I’m excited about.”
Me too!
Beauty, I have just been reminded, is in the eye. Sometimes like a poke.
Weeks after I wrote about a clever effort to force City Hall to see this landmark sign as a violation of the city ban on billboards, my colleagues were looking for ways to spread the word about The Banner’s expanding regional news coverage.
And they stumbled across the billboard for rent in the heart of Annapolis, then signed up for at least three months.
“I’m personally surprised it’s still there,” the VP said. “It seems like someone in a position of power would’ve done something about it by now.”
Nope.
Four million people visit Annapolis every year, thousands will walk or boat by the billboard this Labor Day weekend, followed by a bazillion more during the fall boat shows.
Over time, it has been mundane and controversial. The late Robert Campbell, who bought the billboard more than half a century ago, used it to promote his auction house.
A drunken sailor appeared on it during a Pentagon sobriety campaign, and the image of a naked woman astride a bottle of Courvoisier generated letters of complaint to the local newspaper.
It was the cockroach, though, that got Efe Brock thinking.
Lying there in all its dead-bug glory, the giant insect was a promotion for Home Paramount Pest Control.
The company provides services at the Naval Academy and sometimes takes the space to share its message. It could buy space again after The Banner departs.
The sign’s owners say it’s exempt from the city ban on billboards because it’s been there so long.
It’s been an Annapolis waterfront fixture since the days when coal and lumber yards did business on City Dock instead of bars, art galleries and ice cream parlors.
In April, Brock presented a 13-page petition outlining why he thought any exemption or exclusion from city rules lapsed when lights were added and other changes were made to the billboard.
His most ironic critique, though, was based on rules that require approval for changes to the exterior of permanent structures in the Historic District.
Brock’s argument got a sympathetic hearing from the guardians of those rules but, in the end, amounted to little more than an opinion column.
“Annapolis Department of Planning and Zoning kept closing out my formal complaint in their system as ‘unsubstantiated,’” he emailed.
Still, as Historic Preservation Chief John Tower told me recently, Brock started a conversation.
I might ridicule the cockroach and see the billboard as an out-of-place anachronism, but I love this latest version for a couple of reasons.
The people at The Banner who approved it sign my paycheck. I don’t have to agree, but there’s more to love than just who paid for the message.
“Trusted and Independent. Local news for Anne Arundel County” is positioned conveniently within eyeshot of restaurants owned by David Smith’s family.
The Baltimore media mogul, as you may have heard, sometimes eats at Atlas Restaurant Group locations. Among its many fine eateries, Atlas owns The Choptank across Ego Alley from the billboard, and is developing three more in the same area.
Smith doesn’t run the company. He’s more interested in his other holdings: The Baltimore Sun, its Annapolis daily, the Capital Gazette, and Sinclair Broadcasting.
Just a friendly mealtime hello from the competition.
Will this make the Crab Chili Lime Oysters Rockefeller any less delectable? No. But the positioning is certainly delicious.
This is not the sign’s first refresh this year.
Jane Campbell-Chambliss, the auctioneer’s daughter and now the sign’s owner, didn’t like the cockroach either.
Clear Channel Outdoor controls the content. Still, she promised a new message soon.
Shortly after I wrote about the billboard in April, Historic Annapolis paid to put up a welcome banner (ahem).
“Welcome to Annapolis,” HA’s colorful message read, until The Banner replaced it Tuesday. “Beautiful Historic Seaport.”
What goes on the sign is, of course, free speech. I’m a practitioner of that particular constitutional right, and approve when others exercise theirs.
If I could make The Banner’s sign any better, I would have added my face.
Nothing, in my mind, could draw greater attention to the billboard’s incongruity than using it to promote a critique of its continued existence. Of course, nothing promotes its effectiveness, either.
I mentioned this laughingly to Banner CEO Bob Cohn.
“Let’s see what the marketing people say,” he said.
As a professional observer of people, I noticed he wasn’t laughing. Maybe not my best idea.
The final Banner banner design uses an iconic Annapolis image — midshipmen tossing their covers at graduation.
It’s better than me, I’ll admit.
Brock, the Annapolis resident who challenged this landmark, was irritated by the Historic Annapolis message rather than feeling welcome.
He pointed to the nonprofit’s criticism of, and challenges to, the $100 million plan to remake City Dock, from some flood protection elements to the grassy knoll to a planned maritime welcome center.
Campbell-Chambliss, the owner, sits on the HA board of directors.
“I’ve only grown more frustrated because the city has still taken no real action on this, despite the ties between the billboard’s owner and their organization opposing the construction of a new harbormaster’s office and development of the city dock park,“ Brock emailed me.
“If anything, they strike me as more emboldened to double down in their efforts at making sure City Dock is never improved.”
Oh, gosh.
Wait till he sees what’s up there now.
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