Remember back in June when I criticized the people advertising the Fort Totten Station complex for using Clarendon station in their advertising? Well, they fixed it… kind of. Take a look:
March 4, 2009 issue of Express, page 2
Yes, they “fixed” it. Rather than use a photo of Fort Totten, now they’ve gone photoshop crazy, changing the wall sign that’s visible to say “Fort Totten”, and scrubbing “ORANGE” from the front of the train.
Some people just don’t get it, but I wonder if someone wasn’t reading this site and saw my criticism of them for not even showing the right station in an advertisement for a housing complex that is named for the station. I don’t know, but still, interesting.
And I consider the mistake somewhat material. Fort Totten is an outdoor station, and Clarendon is underground. If I saw that advertisement not knowing about the area, I would presume that it was near an underground Metro station, and that I wouldn’t have to ever see or hear the trains unless I ventured into the land of WMATA. But no, the Red Line is on the surface for some miles in both directions at Fort Totten, and the Green Line is partly in an open cut at Fort Totten. So from that complex, many people can likely see and hear trains from their apartments. Seeing is kind of meh, I’m sure, but hearing them is quite different, especially if one finds sounds of Metro trains annoying.
So the question is, did the owners/operators of Fort Totten Station apartments learn something? Yes, but not what we wanted them to learn, as we find out once again that yes, photos can lie.