Kenmore Square, with the world's most-famous Citgo sign.
Adapted from an item in Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary'' in GoLocal24.com
The famous glowing Citgo signatop a building at Boston’s Kenmore Square will be saved, thus keeping fresh in the minds of now aging Baby Boomer potheads a significant landmark from their youth. Boston officials helped broker a deal between Citgoand a real estate company with the weird name of Related Beal to keep the sign up. The current, “psychedelic’’ version of the sign went up in 1965, just in time to appeal to the hordes of mostly young people in the area who were “experimenting’’ with marijuana.
Daniel Bluestone, an architecture-history professor at Boston University, told The Boston Globe he was very happy about the agreement: “It’s a landmark in the truest sense of the word. It helps people know where they are.” Above-the-street landmarks are particularly important in a city with as confused a layout as Boston.
Of course in the late '60s, many people didn't know 24/7 where they were going.
