‘Tis the season for a little redecoration.
The Holland Tunnel got a slight makeover Monday night after a campaign complaining about the placement of the Christmas tree went viral. The tree decoration that hangs above the entrance to the tunnel on the New Jersey side was moved from over the letter “N” to over the letter “A.”
The campaign that sparked the change, which was started by TriBeCa resident Cory Windelspecht on change.org, garnered more than 2,900 signatures. The Port Authority then created a poll last week — dubbed “the great Holland Tunnel decoration debate” — crowdsourcing opinions on the decoration placement. They received 21,500 votes.
“More than 80 percent voted for change, so change there will be,” said Rick Cotton, the executive director of the Port Authority said earlier Monday. “The winning option is to move the Christmas tree with its triangular form over to the ‘A,’ congruent with the ‘A,’ pursuant to our commuters’ suggestion.”
The public has spoken! 21,500 votes received in response to our poll! And here is the winning option of The Great Holland Tunnel Decoration Debate! Thanks to everyone who voted! #HappyHollandDays https://t.co/ztTuvKfJ05 pic.twitter.com/iLDW0c5fph
— Port Authority NY&NJ (@PANYNJ) December 17, 2018
The wreath over the letter “U” also was taken down and placed at the Journal Square PATH station.
“In this holiday period which celebrates miracles, some have actually said to us that it’s a small miracle that the Port Authority listened and has responded,” Cotton said.
Port Authority Chairman Kevin O’Toole warned that not everyone may be happy about the changes.
“I know we’ll get complaints, it’s not symmetrical, I understand that,” he said. “But this was democracy at work here.”
Windelspecht, 38, who works in medical sales, travels through the tunnel four to five times a week. He stood outside the tunnel on Monday, happy his campaign was a successful one.
“It doesn’t fit at all right now, it’s going to be a little better. A little better is better than not better at all,” he said, joking this was his 15 minutes of fame, and that he would have to audition for reality TV to keep it going. “It just bugged me when I saw it, it made me itch, it made me angry inside. I just wanted to get up there and pull it off … People that do notice it are going to be a lot happier, and the people that didn’t notice it before aren’t going to care.”
He also had a message for the people who he said wrote him hate tweets: “I agree with you 100 percent. It’s not news, but it’s fun, and people enjoy it and why not have some fun? It’s the holidays.”
