Jackson Heights Life

I don't think that the ads are necessarily targeting Brooklynites.  They may be targetting people moving to Brooklyn or NYC from elsewhere.   When I was looking to move to NYC from California six years ago, on the advice of everybody I knew here, I started my search in Park Slope and surrounding neighborhoods (I didn't even bother looking in Manhattan, because my wife and I were planning to have kids and wanted some space).  But in Brooklyn, I wasn't very excited by what I could get for a price I could afford (either in terms of apartment or neighborhood quality), and soon started looking at neighborhoods in Western Queens.  As soon as I saw Jackson Heights, I knew it was the right place.  So I guess I don't see a nefarious gentrification agenda by MPC -- advertising in Brooklyn may just be the best way to find new families with small children, exactly the group are moving into JH anyway.

I was in Park Slope on Saturday the 24th and saw one of MPC's Jack Heights ads in a bus shelter on 7th Ave and 3rd Street.  I lived in Park Slope from 94-01 and won't waste time talking about hos much that neighborhood has changed.  But I did wonder if the campaign might succeed in attracting some of the small business owners in Brooklyn to Jackson Heights.  The rent on 7th Ave in Park Slope can't be more than 37th Ave in Jackson Heights, can it?

Jack Heights now jauntily walks to a tune.   

http://www.jackheights.com/

I don't get who the campaign is directed at, maybe:

2.) Someone like Montgomery Burns on the Simpsons, who's still living in the 1920's, and would identify with a guy in a top hat?

Hmmm...perhaps someone with an ascot, smoking jacket and gold tipped walking stick?

I was headed home in a car on the BQE last night-just crossed the Wlliamsburg bridge into Brooklyn-and wouldn't you know it a HUGE billboard towering over the highway with a jolly Jack Heights introducing himself to all who drove by.  MPC is pulling out the stops...

I think these two guys may be brothers!

If MPC Realty opens an office in Elmhurst or Chinatown he may not need a new Logo!

Jack Heights has a new look, thanks to local artist David Heatley.

The New York Times
Take That, Billy Burg!
By MICHAEL M. GRYNBAUM
Published: July 2, 2009

INVENTIVE brokers have racked their brains for years to brand up-and-coming neighborhoods with pithy acronyms. (South Harlem’s SoHa never quite caught on.) But cartoon mascots?

It happened, last year, in Jackson Heights, the northern Queens outpost that has enticed young couples and families with its affordable prewar apartments and access to the No. 7 train.

Real estate watchers issued a collective groan at the introduction of Jack Heights, a stick-figured fellow consisting of the stylized letters ‘J’ and ‘H.’

“Billy Burg, meet Jack Heights” proclaimed a bus shelter placard that popped up around Williamsburg, Brooklyn, where rents are typically higher. A billboard loomed over the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, in a campaign by CG+M Advertising and Design.

The bloggers deemed him “a pregnant Mr. Peanut” and the whole business was quickly forgotten.

But Michael P. Carfagna, who created the character as a vehicle for MPC Properties, his Jackson Heights-based real estate brokerage firm, was not prepared to give up on a potentially profitable spokesman.

[Click on above link for complete article and a sneak peek of the new Jack.