What to Know
- The uneven placement of holiday wreaths on the Holland Tunnel sign has commuters annoyed
- Cory Windelspecht shared a photo to Facebook, complaining about it, which quickly went viral and was shared 11,000 times
- A petition to have the wreaths changed currently has over 1,000 signatures. Port Authority has not commented.
A photo of the Holland Tunnel sign has gone viral, with people losing it over the Port Authority's holiday-wreath placement choices.
Cory Windelspecht, a frequent voyager between Manhattan and Hoboken, was driving into the city last Friday when he noticed the unusual placement of one of the three wreaths hung for the holiday season. While the two “O-shaped” wreaths covered the “O” and “U” of Holland Tunnel, the “tree-shaped” wreath was placed over the “N” instead of the “A."
“You’ve obviously put the wreath over the ‘O’ and another wreath over the ‘U’ cause it’s kind of ‘O’ shaped, but with the tree you didn’t give a flying f--- because you put the A shaped tree over the N,” Windelspecht told NJ.com.
The picture, which Windelspecht posted to Facebook, has been shared over 11,000 times come Tuesday evening, proving that Windelspecht was not the only one whose OCD was in overtime over the placement.
“One guy told me he avoids the Holland Tunnel and takes the Lincoln for the entire month of December, even though it adds an hour to his commute,” Windelspecht told NJ.com. “There’s no better time in the city. It’s an awesome time of the year—and that’s the entrance we have?”
Windelspecht even started a petition now that has amassed over six hundred signatures, which he plans to drop off Thursday at the Port Authority office.
“Apparently this has been going on for years,” he said. “Jalopnik wrote a story in 2012 called ‘The Holland Tunnel can’t even get Christmas decorations right.”
Budweiser on Wednesday tweeted a picture of its Newark brewery, supporting Windelspecht. The picture shows a wreath over the "U" and a tree over the "E" in Budweiser.
The Port Authority, after telling NJ.com Tuesday that they had acknowledged Windelspecht’s perspective, but had no comment, posted a press released saying it will conduct a survey from Thursday to 5 p.m. Sunday asking the public their opinion on the matter.
The poll will offer four options:
- Leave the decorations as they are
- Move the tree to hang over the “A” in the word “HOLLAND”
- Move the tree to hang over the “A” and remove the second wreath that’s now over the “U” in the world “TUNNEL”
- Add a tree to hang over the “A”, but keep and adjust the existing tree to make the decorations symmetrical