Advertising: Broadway's Big Bottleneck

Broadway's Big Bottleneck

Who says Times Square has lost its famous gaudy sparkle? At 11:53 p.m. on New Year's Eve, Coca-Cola flipped on the switch to launch its contribution to Broadway's born-again glitz: a $3 million, 55-ton billboard featuring a four- story Coke bottle made of fiber glass. A high-tech version of the Coke sign that has reigned in various Times Square locations for 75 years, the billboard contains a mile of neon tubing, 60 miles of optical fiber and more than 13,000 incandescent light bulbs. Controlled by a robotic animation system, the giant bottle pops its cap, a straw emerges, and the soda...

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