The powerful Tiecoon at Penn Station, Midtown Manhattan, May 9, 2009, 10:00 a.m.:
Phillies vs. Braves at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia, May 9, 2009, 5:24 p.m.:
Dirty Frank’s, Philadelphia, May 9, 2009, 11:42 p.m.:
The Shirt Corner, Old City, Philadelphia, May 10, 2009, 3:15 p.m.:
The exciting new Trenton Transit Center in Trenton, New Jersey, May 10, 2009, 4:47 p.m.:
Another Mets vs. Phillies game, this time from Section 512:
The Section 512 seats were much better than the Section 538 seats we had, which you can see, about where the Chicago-Houston score is posted:
I’ll tell you what, there’s a huge difference between the advertisements from last year at Shea and this year at Citi Field. Last year at Shea, you had Delta, Sharp, Chevy and Verizon:
Then State Farm and of course the infamous AIG:
This year, on the food media day before the stadium opened, on March 31, 2009, there was a sort of blank slate — not sure if they didn’t put the signs up yet or if (hrm!) they didn’t know who would buy signage:
So now that the stadium is up and running, note that AIG is notably absent, and in its place, an expanded “freecreditreport.com” presence:
They’re the ones with that ad with the garage band in the basement; still not sure what the catch is, and why this is a profitable enterprise.
As for the newcomers, there’s Bob’s Furniture:
spongetech.com (what is that exactly?) and superpages.com:
The old sell-your-gold thing:
Titan Motors:
And the Arpielle Equipment Co.:
In short, the Citi Field ads look a lot like what you’d see at a minor league game.
Arpielle Equipment Co. also sponsors the Mets’ version of the ubiquitous [blank] vs. [blank] race, that computer-generated doodad where digitalized items “race” each other and the results are randomly generated. I think it’s supposed to elicit a crowd response, but I don’t feel at all bad not rooting for a computer program. At Yankee Stadium last year (haven’t been there this year yet) the B, D and 4 trains “raced” each other to the stadium. The Phillies do a similar thing with SEPTA and its joke of a subway system. At Army football games at West Point, they race tanks. Spectators at other ballparks seem to enjoy the eternal ketchup-mustard-relish match. But the Arpielle [blank] vs. [blank] at Citi Field is just inexplicable — it’s a fork lift against a light tower. I’m not even kidding:
I guess that stimulus money is good for something . . .
The tulips on the Park Avenue Malls are done for the year:
