Company: Interboro Signs
Product: Signs and Billboards installation and Maintenance.
Markets: New York
Address: 39-16 23rd Street, Long Island City, NY, 11101
Phone: 718-366-7901
Email: info@interborosigns.com
Interboro Signs is a family-owned firm with 25 employees and a fleet of boom trucks, bucket trucks and cranes. Interboro fabricates, installs and maintains static and digital billboards in New York City as well as various types of signage. The company is located in Long Island City, New York. Billboard Insider talked with Cindy Bachan, one of the owners.
How did you get involved with the out of home advertising industry?
I’ve worked in the sign industry for about 25 years. I started off at a sign manufacturing and installation company. I then moved on to an engineering company so I got a little experience there and then finally to a union sign installation company. I started working at Interboro as an employee and worked for the owners for 10 years and then they wanted to retire so my family and I decided to purchase the company.
You’re a family operation
The company includes myself and my husband who has a background in construction and who is a co-owner of the company, my son who is a local 3 member, my other son who is a local 137 member and my daughter who handles the day to day administration. We are a minority woman business enterprise.
What kinds of projects do you work on?
A lot of our work is high end installation like billboards and LED digital screens…stuff that you see in Times Square. We do vinyl copy changes. We do electrical maintenance. We also work with high end stores on their holiday décor. We work with many of the outdoor advertising companies and LED manufacturing companies. Our market is mostly in New York City and a little bit in New Jersey and Long Island.
It must be challenging
There are very few companies like ours in New York City. It’s hard to do business in New York if you’re an outsider. We are affiliated with two of the unions. One is local 137 which is the sign hangers and the second is local 3 which are electricians. Besides those affiliations you must have a master sign hanger license, you must have a master electrician license. You must also be able to work with the various city agencies like the DOT and the DOB to ensure you have all the permits that you need to do work in the city.
Tells us about an interesting billboard installation
We recently completed a huge LED display at 3 Times Square which is in the heart of Times Square. We worked closely with Branded Cities and Rudin Management on this project. It was 8200 square feet comprising of two separate digital screens. We had to coordinate the installation during night hours to avoid the busy Times Square traffic.
What’s new over the past year?
May 2024 is when we officially bought the company from the previous owners. We also moved our offices from the old premises to the new one in Long Island City which is 10 minutes from Manhattan. We’ve been spending a lot of time developing new relationships with all of the outdoor advertising companies and marketing our company as one of the few in NYC that can perform our type of work
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Congratulations Bachan family, that’s an AMAzing story. It’s so nice to see a hard working American family succeed, especially in such a challenging business.
Larry was a solid citizen with good a work ethic, his shoes will be hard to fill.