Do floating billboards ruin New York's waterfront? The city thinks so

So unsurprisingly, the sight of a 1,200-square-foot electronic billboard sailing along Manhattan in October produced countless eye rolls and gripes, numerous tweets and considerable frustration.

Now months later, New York City has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the company that operates the billboards from sailing its ad-bearing barges. But the company, Ballyhoo Media, says it plans to keep its boats ashore.

“We think this is a clear overreach of government,” Adam Shapiro, the company’s chief executive, said Thursday, a day after the city had filed the lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed in the Southern District of New York in Manhattan, accused Ballyhoo of violating local laws with its “Times Square-style billboards” and of creating a public nuisance.

“Our waterways aren’t Times Square,” Mayor Bill de Blasio said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “These floating eyesores have no place on them.”

In addition to seeking an injunction that would stop Ballyhoo from operating the billboards, the city also said it wanted to collect penalties of up to $25,000 because of its claim that the company has violated zoning laws.

The lawsuit also said the billboards distract drivers along waterfront highways, boat operators in waterways, and pedestrians and bicyclists on riverside paths.

Shapiro said he did not believe that Ballyhoo was breaking the law. Before sailing its billboards in New York, he said, the company had gotten advice from law firms, and zoning and maritime experts.

“They all said we did not infringe upon any zoning laws,” Shapiro said.

Ballyhoo’s boat in New York, which carries a 60-foot-long and 20-foot-high LED screen, travels from the West Side of Midtown, down the Hudson River and around Battery Park, before heading up the East River toward Roosevelt Island.

The journey takes two hours before the boat reverses course, Shapiro said.

“I want to be sympathetic to people and understand their point of view,” he said. “I just can’t see how something passing by in a couple of seconds impacts someone’s day.”

Marcy Benstock, the executive director of the Clean Air Campaign and the Open Rivers Project in New York, said her organization had received complaints from people who live along the water that the light from the billboard had awakened them.

“People go by the river in order to get a sense of serenity, peace and quiet, and release from stress,” she said. “And suddenly, one of these things comes by that does the opposite. It makes them furious.”

In January, the city’s Law Department sent a letter to Ballyhoo, informing it that the city believed the company was flouting the law.

Shapiro said the company responded with “a very detailed letter” explaining why it did not think the billboards violated zoning regulations. He said the city never responded.

He also said he thought recent reports have exaggerated New Yorkers’ dissatisfaction.

“We’re reaching about 500,000 people daily,” Shapiro said. “Even if a small number of people are unhappy — which could be thousands in New York City — that doesn’t represent the majority.”

Shapiro said businesses that had paid for the billboards had contacted him with concerns over the lawsuit. He would not say whether he had lost business because of it.

He added that he was hopeful his company, which started out of Miami in 2016, and New York City could work together in the future. In Miami, Ballyhoo was crafting a deal with the city’s tourism board to play movies on the beach, he said. He hoped to do something similar in New York.

“We’re trying to be an asset to the community,” he said. “By no means are we trying to be a distraction.”

This week, two City Council members, Mark D. Levine and Justin L. Brannan, introduced a bill that would increase the fine for companies advertising in the city’s waterways to $100,000, from $25,000.

Both men said they welcomed the city’s lawsuit.

“These monstrosities are ugly and illegal and soon they will be a thing of the past,” Brannan said in a statement. “At a time when every square inch of our world feels like it’s covered in advertisements, visual pollution is a real thing and our waterways should be off limits.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.