#37 Lighting The Zipper Sign in New York City

A lesson from an episode in a prior professional life.

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NOTE: People often ask me what I did before starting Boundary Breaks. The following episode from a prior professional life made a lasting impression. In a small way, many years later, it led to the decision to come to Lodi to begin growing Riesling grapes in the Finger Lakes.

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In 1986, I moved to New York City to help re-launch the historic “Zipper” sign in Times Square.

The Zipper, was built in 1928 and became famous for announcing the news of the day. It became a New York icon, a landmark for the city at the center of the world. Then, 50 year later, in the 1970’s, when New York City was in decline, the lights on the Zipper went dark.

In the early 1980’s, through a contact, I got an offer to come to New York and help re-launch the legendary sign.

The offer had come from a suburban newspaper company which was promoting a newly-expanded New York City edition. As part of its promotional efforts, the paper decided that the best way to declare its arrival in the Big Apple, was to bring the Zipper back to life.

I was told that the mayor of New York City had agreed to throw a ceremonial switch that would re-start the sign. And, to make the launch more dramatic, the re-launch of the sign would be televised “live” on local news at 6:38 PM. The date and time of this live broadcast was set. We had about six weeks.

The sign had not run in eight years. Every part of it needed to be re-wired. I knew nothing about how this was supposed to work. I asked if there were any contacts that I could call to figure what to do first.

I was given two phone numbers: one was for “Bobby” at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and the other was for “Jim” at a sign company in South Dakota.

Because I had once worked as a newspaper reporter, I was comfortable asking questions, always politely. As these things go, I ended up relying very heavily on the expertise of Bobby and Jim. I also had one other person working with me at the newspaper who was fearless in making sure we stayed on schedule.

A million things could have gone wrong over six weeks, and many of them did. When the date of the re-launch arrived, the sign was working.

But we had one inconvenient issue to solve. The mayor was going to be outside on the street, and the switch that he was going to throw was a “fake” switch. It was not connected by anything to the actual Zipper sign.

Our plan was for me to have a two-way radio and stand near the mayor. Bobby was to be inside the building with the other two-way radio and stand by the switch that started the sign. When the mayor threw the fake switch, I was to radio Bobby and tell him to throw the real switch. Seemed like a good plan, we were ready for 6:38 PM.

Standing in Times Square at around 6:00 PM, as the crowd gathered, I realized that if my radio did not work, Bobby would not know when to throw his switch. The radio was the weak link in the entire process.

So around 6:10, I started to call Bobby to test the radio. I was nervous, so I was calling Bobby about every minute to confirm that our radios worked.

“Bruce,” Bobby finally said, “knock it off. You are going to drain the battery with all your worrying.”

At 6:38 PM, the mayor stood ready to throw the switch. The lights from all the TV cameras came on. They were so bright, they blinded me. I couldn’t see what the mayor was actually doing. I had to assume he was throwing this switch, so I radioed Bobby, “Hit it.”

The sign came on, and everybody went nuts.

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There are several lessons that I took away from this episode. I got the credit for the sign coming up that night, but I really wasn’t that responsible for it working. It was Bobby and Jim and the guy working with me at the newspaper who did the work.

All I did for six weeks was to keep asking questions. Always politely. Always with respect.

Which is what I have done from the beginning at Boundary Breaks. Assemble the best team and ask the right questions.