The Sound and the Fury
Gallery Place's Noisy Billboards Drive Some to Distraction

By Paul Schwartzman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, February 3, 2008

The corner of Seventh and H streets NW may be one of the District's busiest downtown intersections, but a developer thought the corner lacked a certain high-tech something.

A touch of Times Square, perhaps.

Up went three video billboards, hanging over an entrance to the Gallery Place Metro station, adding light, color and sound -- lots of sound -- to a corner otherwise dominated by Chinatown's Gateway Arch.

Cosmopolitan pizzazz had arrived -- that is, if your definition of pizzazz includes hearing AT&T ads play no less than 22 out of 24 hours a day.

"Switch to the network you can trust" intones one jingle .

"Tell someone you love them this Valentine's Day" begins another.

"Look! Daddy sent more pictures" announces a third .

In a symphony of big-city sound -- screaming sirens, clanging garbage trucks, honking horns -- the commercials might go largely unnoticed if they played once in awhile.

But a single ad playing seven times in 10 minutes, as was the rate one recent morning?

Never mind the volume, which appears to wax and wane depending on the time of day. The repetition can be enough to drive its audience nuts.

"They need to switch it up," said Maurice Davis, 54, as he waited for a bus, puffing on a cigarette and glaring at the screens. "It just plays the same thing over and over."

The endless loop inspired another commuter, Adam Russell, 25, to turn up his iPod and later fire off a heart-felt missive to a neighborhood Web site:

"I swear if I have to hear that blasted AT&T commercial (the one that goes 'this time I'm out to get you!') one more time I'm going to go postal on those billboards! Seriously!"

Then there are the residents of the Gallery Place condominiums, who paid a fair chunk of change to live upstairs. The jingles were loud enough on one recent night that Andrew Etter, the condo board's president, said he had to crash on the couch in his 10th-floor living room, where the whirring of his computer helped drown out the sound.

"I can't even sleep in my own bed at night," Etter wrote in an anguished e-mail.

Gallery Place's developer, Herb Miller, who installed the video screens in November, ordered the volume lowered recently after learning of the complaints. He acknowledged that the sound quality "stinks" and said that he's trying to improve the system.

Yet Miller said he remains committed to his vision for the corner. "Have you been to Times Square?" he asked. "It's a mixture of light and activity, and what was the dregs of New York has become a tourist attraction."

Except that Miller's concept of endlessly broadcasting advertisements would not fly in New York, where neon lights are celebrated but a permit is required to amplify sound.

Tim Tompkins, executive director of the Times Square Alliance, a nonprofit group representing businesses, theaters and property owners, said he knows of no billboards in the heart of Manhattan that emit commercial audio.

"Even in Times Square, where there is no such thing as a bad advertisement, that might be a little much," he said.

The video screens were made possible by the D.C. Council, which passed legislation in 2005 enabling Gallery Place property owners to whip up a bit of dazzle in their signs and help give the Seventh Street corridor a festive feel.

The legislation made no mention of noise. Gallery Place's outdoor sound system, Miller said, was approved by the District when he obtained his building permit.

The trio of screens at Seventh and H are the only ones in the region that broadcast commercials continuously, said Patrick Pharris, the sales representative who leases the billboards to advertisers.

The corner's bustle, he said, makes it ideal for video advertising, with three subway lines bringing some 20,000 commuters there daily, not to mention tens of thousands more who walk or drive through the intersection.

Pharris declined to say how much AT&T is paying, but his Web site lists the rent as $50,000 a month per advertiser.

The revenue, Miller said, will help finance the public service and community-oriented ads that will account for 10 percent of what's played once the system is improved.

"The whole purpose of the community component is to talk about Chinatown and what's at the Smithsonian," he said. "We'll put the community stuff in there so it's not constantly the same ads."

Richard Bradley, executive director of the Downtown D.C. Business Improvement District, which represents property owners and businesses, said Washington would benefit from the creation of a central gathering point -- like Times Square or Piccadilly Circus in London or the Ginza district in Tokyo. But he's not convinced that bolting video screens to a building is the answer.

"Several people have said to me, 'It's bad enough that you see advertising, but you also have to hear it,' " he said.

"If you need to do something, you do something artistic, with neon, something that would draw attention," he said. "It ought to be thought about contextually."

The video screens are not without their supporters. On the Penn Quarter Living Web site, a poster identified as "DP" asked for more signs, writing that "DC needs more bright lights throughout the city, it has enough majesty and beauty."

Another wrote that the signs are no worse than the "rotation of loud musicians playing for money" on the corner.

Cheryl Fine, who lives in a condominium above the signs, will take the street musicians any night. And the firetrucks. And the ambulances. And the screaming club-hoppers.

Anything but AT&T.

"All day and all night?" she asked. "Is this a joke?"