Iconic Jehovah's Witnesses Watchtower Sign Is Gone -- Guess What Will Replace It
The iconic Watchtower sign, a landmark in Brooklyn Heights for almost 50 years, is no more.
Photo by Susan De Vries
Out with the old, in with the new. The iconic lit-up red Watchtower sign, a landmark in Brooklyn Heights for almost 50 years, is no more.
The massive letters came down on Wednesday, although the framework for the sign remains.
Installed in 1969 atop the Jehovah’s Witnesses headquarters, the 15-foot-high sign was originally made of neon tubes, which were replaced with LEDs in 2009, according to the Witnesses.
The building and four others near it were purchased a year ago for $340 million by Kushner Companies and partners, known as Columbia Heights Associates, who plan to transform them into an office and retail complex dubbed Panorama.
One of several new renderings on the complex’s website show the sign replaced by one spelling out Panorama in glowing red letters.
Another iconic relic of Brooklyn’s industrial past, the Kentile Floors sign in Gowanus, came down in 2014.
In 2011, the Witnesses started putting their considerable Brooklyn holdings up for sale, estimated to be worth well over $1 billion, in preparation for a move upstate to Warwick, N.Y.
Kushner Companies now owns many former Witnesses properties, including another cluster of buildings it turned into a retail and office complex, known as Dumbo Heights.
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