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As the third millennium comes within spitting distance, two impulses dominate life around the globe - surging faith in capitalism and an endless fascination with the planetwide flow of data. To find their boldest expression, look to New York's Times Square.
In the past six months, the Square's gargantuan electronic billboards have been transformed into battlegrounds in the information wars, as different sectors of the once low-profile banking and financial-services industry compete to build the biggest and best signs.
These current spectacles, however, will pale in comparison to Nasdaq's display. Slated to go online in late 1999 at a reported cost of $15 million, the sign adorning the Condé Nast building (future home of this magazine's owner) will be 11,800 square feet - the largest in Times Square. In a remarkable feat of engineering, a 100-foot-high Jumbotron-style video screen will wrap around the building, providing live television feeds and financial news from markets worldwide.
The company expected to direct this outdoor financial theater is Artkraft Strauss Sign Corporation. Led by Tama Starr, Artkraft builds most of these banners, and its profitable 100-year run is due in large measure to its success in monitoring the Square's ever changing pulse. "The displays in Times Square have always reflected the public's current obsessions," says Starr, "and the central message you get right now is similar to the message of the '50s: It's a straightforward expression of exuberance and optimism." Earlier in the century, she adds, "the public was concerned with consumer goods - Camel cigarettes, Hoover vacuum cleaners, Budweiser beer. Now the main preoccupation is with information."
The third-generation head of the family-owned Artkraft, Starr is also coauthor of Signs and Wonders, a study of Times Square and signs.
Today's data-drenched displays are as much totemic as practical, she says. Of the Morgan Stanley Dean Witter banner, Starr notes, "It's more information than anyone can possibly process. But the overall effect is emotional. The display gives you a feeling of being a part of something much larger than yourself. It makes you feel good because it makes you feel smart."
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