Oy vey, what a saucy show!
Members of Williamsburg’s Orthodox community gave an early negative review to the new CW show “90210” based squarely on a promotional poster they were outraged to find on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.
The billboard, which has the swimsuit-clad stars of the new show – a re-boot of the ’90s teen-angst television classic – cavorting in a “90210” pool, can be seen by motorists heading eastbound on the BQE between Fort Greene and Williamsburg.
The billboard has been greeting motorists for at least two weeks, but has just recently received the ire of Rabbi David Niederman of the United Jewish Organizations of Williamsburg on Penn Street, who is demanding that the billboard be removed.
Niederman said that he and several others in Williamsburg’s Orthodox community are outraged by the billboard’s racy nature.
“In Jewish law, it is forbidden to see any part of a lady that is not dressed — and having men and women swimming together is also not permissible, even if they are fully clothed,” Niederman said last week. “This is the opinion of the majority of the Jewish community in Williamsburg. Just look at the publications that the Orthodox community patronizes and you would see that such pictures are never inserted in them.”
Niederman said that those responsible for advertising placement on the BQE are “bringing Times Square” to their community, which last month took umbrage to a racy H&M ad found along the BQE.
“What’s OK over there is not OK over here,” he told reporters. “We are not telling people how to conduct their lives, but they should understand and respect our way of life.”
But the billboard in question is actually not in Williamsburg, but in Fort Greene just before the Flushing Avenue exit.
The billboard is actually stationed atop of a building on Park Avenue near Adelphi Street.
It’s the only racy billboard found on the BQE between the Brooklyn Bridge and Williamsburg, if, of course, you don’t count the dancing shadow of a woman enjoying her iPod.
The rest of the billboards are for pricey cars and the superhero movies “Iron Man” and “The Incredible Hulk.”
Niederman told reporters that the billboard is on a major driving route that Orthodox Brooklynites use when traveling between Williamsburg and Borough Park.
“There are millions of spots that they could put it and the overwhelming majority would have no objections, yet they put it here, where it is forbidden for us to look at,” he said.
Until the billboard is removed, Niederman is telling his congregants to avert their eyes from the ad when they pass by.
“You’re a captive audience, but I tell them that if they don’t look not only would they have a better place in paradise secured for them, but they won’t create an accident either,” he said.
Calls to Warner Brothers, which oversees the CW network, were not returned as this paper went to press.
