(Photo: Jolanta Bielat)

There’s Gold in Them There Sidewalks!
HBO’s nugget marketing.
HBO’s been prospecting for viewers for the new season of Deadwood, so it hit upon the idea of sprinkling the ground, phone booths, and ATM locations along Broadway from 10th Street to Columbus Circle with little golden nuggets. A ten-member team did the drop (200 per block) from 3 to 5 A.M. on February 28. The 10,000 gold-painted die-cast Canadian lead pebbles were imprinted with a URL. Nugget holders could enter a contest to strike gold in the form of cash or Deadwood DVDs. Within a day, more than 2,500 people had logged on. However, unlike in Deadwood, South Dakota, there are fines for littering here. “We had consulted the city’s sanitation laws,” says HBO spokesperson Courteney Monroe, and HBO sent out pickup teams at 10 A.M., but the nuggets were gone by then.
——Kate Pickert