A sign for above?
John Hancock may seek the city’s approval to put its illuminated sign atop its 200 Berkeley St. building
Citgo has one. So do Vertex, State Street, and Prudential. Is it John Hancock’s turn to put its name in lights on the Boston skyline? The financial services company is mulling whether to seek the city’s permission to place the John Hancock-signature sign — the very same litup logo that sat above the centerfield video board in Fenway Park until the end of last season — near the top of its art deco building at 200 Berkeley St. That’s the Old John Hancock Building, the one with the beacon that flashes color-coded weather forecasts that can be deciphered with a simple poem.
I am told by folks in the know that Hancock executives had an initial phone conversation about its sky sign with the Boston Planning and Development Agency, and they also have courteously alerted Mayor Michelle Wu’s staff. The company hasn’t decided whether to move forward by submitting a formal proposal to the BPDA, whose approval would be needed — and is far from a sure thing.
Anne Hammer, Hancock’s chief communications officer, declined to comment. Back in July, the company advised that “an exciting new home” for the sign might be announced soon.
Lacey Rose, the BPDA’s communications director, wouldn’t discuss Hancock specifically. But she sent over a statement making clear that the agency doesn’t just sign off on any old sign request.
“The city retains wide discretion over this decision and there’s a very high standard for major signage on buildings that shape the Boston skyline,” her e-mail said.
As my Globe colleague Jon Chesto explained in a 2017 story, that standard is “a bit of a mystery.”
The BPDA follows some basic tenets, he wrote: A company seeking to tout its name on the skyline “must be a major employer; the sign should be tastefully done; the tower where it’s displayed is usually new construction.” But the agency has never codified its criteria, even after saying years ago it would do so.
However, the BPDA is known to look favorably
‘The city retains wide discretion over this decision and there’s a very high standard for major signage on buildings that shape the Boston skyline.’
ANNE HAMMER, Hancock chief communication officer
on high-profile sign requests when companies also are making a major investment in the city. Think of Vertex when the biotech moved to the Seaport from Cambridge, or Converse after the sneaker company relocated near North Station from North Andover.
John Hancock executives know all this.
In 2005, when the company shifted its headquarters from the Back Bay to the Seaport, it was one of the first major companies to do so. It was a year after the company was acquired by Toronto’s Manulife Financial, and the new digs calmed fears in some circles that Hancock’s local presence would be scaled back by its notoriously cost-conscious Canadian owners. Its name went up on top of the 14-story building.
I hear that Hancock CEO Marianne Harrison thinks that prominent placement for the sign would be a good way to remind Boston that the company, whose local roots date to the Civil War, is still here and committed to the city.
Hancock, which has 3,500 employees in the state and 6,000 overall, remains a solid corporate citizen whose civic programs include MLK Scholars, which provides summer job for nearly 600 Boston teenagers each year.
But its public profile just isn’t what it was before the Manulife buyout. Hancock’s CEO at the time, David D’Alessandro, was one the city’s most visible and powerful business leaders. The company routinely ran national television ads.
Hancock this year ended two big sponsorship deals, one with the Red Sox — leaving the giant logo homeless — the other with the Boston Marathon, after the next race in April. Both were expensive — and both were D’Alessandro creations.
The city is said to be especially displeased with the Marathon pullout because it jeopardizes the program under which runners receive official numbers if they run for charities — a Hancock innovation that has raised millions of dollars over the years.
Perhaps repurposing the Fenway sign is a cheaper way to keep the Hancock name in the public eye as it continues its quieter civic contributions?
The Old Hancock Building, which served as the company’s home office from 1947 to 1977, rises 26 stories or nearly 500 feet, including the weather beacon and mast. The sign would be positioned on the stepped pyramid roof just below the beacon, on the side of the building that faces the Charles River.
My first thought on hearing about the plan was: Wouldn’t the loud LED sign ruin the quiet elegance of the beacon? Hancock planners apparently don’t think so. But will the BPDA?
That probably depends on whether the sign brings something more to the city than just another “corporation logo flashing on and off in the sky.”
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The poem: “Steady blue, clear view. Flashing blue, clouds due. Steady red, rain ahead. Flashing red, snow instead.” During baseball season, flashing red signals that the Red Sox game at Fenway has been rained out.
In 2018, Hancock announced its return to the Back Bay, consolidating most local employees at 200 Berkeley and the building it owns at 197 Clarendon St.
From “Night Rally,” which can be found on some versions of Elvis Costello’s 1978 album, “This Year’s Model.”