Bowery Boogie | A Lower East Side Chronicle

For the last week or so, a brigade of trucks has been deployed to install a new hi-tech Levi’s billboard above the Bank of America branch at the northeast corner of East Houston and Lafayette.  Each day, crews installed the elaborate collection of cogs, that together, spell the message “We are workers.”

The music video for the Hold Steady’s “Stay Positive” is ripe with Lower East Side street scenes, circa 2008.  Shout-outs include the graffiti wall, the old Playstation billboard, Red Square, and the Schapiro’s Wines mural on Essex. The Hold Steady, “Stay Positive” (2008)

After hanging above the corner of Lafayette and East Houston for years, Sony has finally surrendered the valuable NoHo perch to the fashion industry. Gone is the epileptic PSP.  Now the billboard sports an anorexic H&M advertisement.  End of an era, folks. Condo owners at SHoP’s 290 Mulberry are probably quite happy. [February 2009]

Some early-morning maintenance on the world’s largest PSP. Related Reading:Blinded by the Light [Bowery Boogie]

Now that their ginormous billboard is operational, Playstation is bringing Times Square back to NoHo. The seizure-inducing light emanating from the six-story installation will undoubtedly draw ire from future tenants across the way at SHoP’s 290 Mulberry. Related Reading:End of an Era [Curbed]