Kenmore Square - The Citgo Sign

The Citgo Sign

A large, double-faced sign featuring the logo of oil company Citgo overlooks Kenmore Square, and has become a famous landmark, partly because of its appearance in the background of televised Red Sox baseball games. The current iteration, 60 feet (18m) square, unveiled in March 2005 after a six-month restoration project, features thousands of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that turn off at 00:00. LEDs were selected for their durability, energy efficiency, intensity, and ease of maintenance; however, the sign was shut down for several months beginning in July 2010 to replace the LEDs with a newer version hopefully more capable of withstanding the winds and temperature extremes seen by the sign. Earlier versions featured neon lighting; the previous sign contained some 5,878 glass tubes with a total length of over 5 miles (8 km). Citgo, which is a subsidiary of Petróleos de Venezuela S.A., refers to its logo as the "trimark".

The first sign, featuring the Cities Service logo, was built in 1940, and replaced with the trimark in 1965. In 1979, Governor Edward J. King ordered it turned off as a symbol of energy conservation. Four years later, Citgo attempted to disassemble the weatherbeaten sign, and was surprised to be met with widespread public affection for the sign and protest at its threatened removal. The Boston Landmarks Commission ordered its disassembly postponed while the issue was debated. While never formally given landmark status, it was refurbished and relit by Citgo in 1983 and has remained in operation ever since.

Although there was, originally, a Cities Service station on the ground floor of the building, there is no associated Citgo gas station—the sign is now a historical landmark, visible over the left field wall of Fenway Park during most televised Boston Red Sox games. It was highlighted in the 1968 short film Go, Go Citgo and a 1983 Life Magazine photograph feature. The association with Fenway and the Red Sox is so strong that local little league fields often are decorated with replicas of the Citgo sign, as is Hadlock Field in Portland, Maine, home of the Red Sox' Double-A minor league affiliate, the Portland Sea Dogs. The sign is caricatured in Neal Stephenson's 1984 book The Big U as "the Big Wheel sign", worshipped by members of a fictional American Megaversity fraternity.

In September 2006, Jerry McDermott, a Boston city councillor, proposed that the sign be removed in response to Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez's insults toward American President George W. Bush. McDermott also suggested draping an American flag or Boston Red Sox banner over the sign until Chávez is out of office.

On October 15, 2008, a small electrical fire inside the sign caused approximately $5,000 worth of damage, partially melting the plastic and leaving visible smoke damage.

• Citgo sign

• Profile view revealing inner steel skeleton

• Citgo sign viewed from the end of Yawkey Way