The disappearance of that ad would further the demise of the medium that began in 1985, when companies began turning to digitally manufactured vinyl advertisements that can be spread across the side of a building in a day. Digital ads are demonstrating increasingly better quality, now able to reproduce an image with as many as 1,000 dots per square inch. A year ago, the machines could do no better than 600 per square inch. He saw the ad on trips to Madison Square Garden to see the circus with his father. Any New Yorker who goes to the Garden is familiar with that wall.
Big ads are part of the New York landscape.
Even part of the rural landscape. People paint big ads on the sides of barns. Before Artkraft took control of the ad, Starr said there was an ad for the building's office space for 40 years. Artkraft began leasing it after Starr's grandfather, Jacob, had a particular vision for the space, thanks to its five-tiered top. Artkraft has leased the wall from the building owner ever since, though James Manfredi,vice president of operations for Artkraft Strauss, would not say how long the current contract lasts, nor how much the company pays.