All this Super Bowl love in the city is just a lot of bull. So says the man behind the campaign to free the Wall Street Charging Bull statue from restricting barricades.
Bowling Green Alliance chairman Arthur Piccolo said the city turned down team requests to fly Bronco and Seahawks flags in Bowling Green Park on poles behind the iconic Charging Bull statue near the New York Stock Exchange.
Piccolo said the Parks Department told him the flags can’t fly because the city doesn’t allow commercial ventures on city property.
“What about the 13 blocks in Midtown?” said Piccolo.
The civic group leader was referring to the 13-block stretch of Broadway that has been carved out to accommodate Super Bowl Boulevard, the NFL’s football-themed big-game playground
Piccolo said raising the flags at Bowling Green would show New York City’s friendships with other cities.
“Everywhere else, the city has been doing everything possible to highlight the Super Bowl,” he said. “This is a symbolic issue.”
Piccolo led a campaign in 2012 to pressure the city to remove barricades from the bull during Occupy Wall Street protests.
A Parks Department spokesman said, “The city received a request to fly the flags of the two Super Bowl teams on the flagpole at Bowling Green Park, where the flags of the United States, City of New York, NYC Parks and the POW flag currently fly. This request was not deemed to be appropriate for a public park and it was denied.”
Piccolo said, “The Alliance would like to hang on the flag on the second flagpole, with the Parks Department flag, not on the pole with the American flag.”