"We Stare at You Because We Love You" Ruled Out as Boro Park Slogan

BORO PARK, BROOKLYN — [TheKnish.com] When Councilman Simcha Felder called for people to "Shreib a Shlogan for Shnorer Park," more than 20,000 potential new city slogans flooded into the Boro Park Tourism Office. Some of the proposals were obviously not destined to win, like "Boro Park: Get Your Bulletproof Stockings Right Here." or "Boro Park: Gateway to Bensonhurst".

But others were serious, even clever.

After narrowing the list of candidates to 1,800, a 17-member committee of city tourism officials, employees of convention and visitor bureaus across the city and some of Felder's aides further whittled down to ten semifinalists. Those were released yesterday.

By the second week of February, said Ruchy Feinblatt of the Boro Park Tourism Office, five finalists will be selected and all five will be listed on the tourism office's Web site, visit.bp.com. Anyone with access to the Web site can then vote - as many times as they want - and the slogan that gets the most votes will win. The winner will be announced in mid-March.

While no firm decisions were made yesterday, four of the semifinalists, "Boro Park: You're Going the Wrong Way Up 13th Avenue," "Boro Park: You're Going the Wrong Way Down 14th Avenue," "Boro Park: Beep Beep, Honk, Beep, Honk, Beeeeeeeeeeeep...," and "Boro Park: Sunset Park Takeover Will be Complete by 2025," would appear to be ready to flat-line. In a straw vote by committee members those three didn't get a single vote.

Three others were on the critical list: "Boro Park: Where the Beards are as Long as the Skirts," with only one vote and "Boro Park: Don't Worry, Flatbush is on the Other Side of the Security Fence," and "Boro Park: Home 2 the 1 BR apt 4 fam. of 12," with only two votes.

The top vote-getters in yesterday's non-binding vote were "Boro Park: More Fun When It's Pronounced With a Hungarian Sing-Song," with 11 votes, "Boro Park: We Actually Have a Young Israel," with ten votes and "Boro Park: Daven Shachris in Munkacs at 2:30 PM, It's Okay, Really," with nine votes.

The goal of the contest is to come up with a phrase or slogan, "That would inspire people to travel to Boro Park," Feinblatt said. Judges will be looking for entries that are, "Short, to the point and unique to Boro Park."

The grand prize winner will be announced in February at the National Constitutional Center in Boro Park and will receive a slice of pizza from Amnon's, but will have to pay for the cheese, dough and tomato sauce.

Writer

Martin Bodek is short, dark, handsome, run marathons (finishes them too!), can solve a Rubik's Cube in 1:47, is a big TED chasid, can whup your keister in Scrabble, loves Halva, and co-founded TheKnish.com.

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