Newsom Favors Market Street Billboard Makeover

It's not quite the 11th hour, but the previously silent Gavin has come out in favor of Mid-Market's Prop D, the measure to allow signage on Market Street between 5th and 7th.

The mayor's support, however, may not make much difference come Tuesday. As City Insider notes: "He has notoriously short coattails and has trouble seeing his picks gain favor among voters." Oh, but he's so suave, that Gavin.

The Mid-Market corridor's been riddled with strip joints and empty storefronts for decades now, and the man who fancies himself a sort of Wayne family to Mid-Market's Gotham is David Addington and he is pushing the idea.

He owns the Warfield Theater  and has gourmet sausage resto Show Dogs already under his belt.

To top it off, he's signed Blick's Art Supplies away from its current spot on Van Ness, and is spearheading a proposition on this November's ballot to allow Mid-Market signage ranging from "dancing inflatable men" to digital billboards.

Detractors have already written off the measure as electric blight, but Addington so believes in the ugly duckling neighborhood that he's moving his family, 18-month-old daughter in tow, to the Tenderloin come January.

And he's also lined up a pretty impressive array of supporters, including six supes, SPUR, and even the person who led (and won) the 2002 campaign to ban new billboards in the city.

SF Curbed contributed to this story.

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