Blinking Billboards Seen As Advertising Pollution

New York City's Upper West Side resident are banding together against Clear Channel Communications' proliferation of blinking billboards that, as residents claim, are turning their neighborhood into Times Square North. Over the past four years, in a deal with the financially struggling Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Clear Channel has erected 800 backlit displays near subway stations through out the city with the newest in the Upper West Side. Residents feel the signs are distracting and intrusive to neighborhood life and they want them gone.