SALON

Monday, Apr 9, 2012 10:00 PM UTC

Providence’s iconic big blue bug gets a makeover

By

Topics: From the Wires,

Providence's iconic big blue bug gets a makeoverA workman maneuvers near a giant blue termite, an iconic landmark for New England Pest Control, perched on the company's office in Providence, R.I., Monday, April 9, 2012. The company is renaming itself Big Blue Bug Solutions after its corporate namesake. Company owner Stephan Goldman said the new name makes sense because the termite is better known than his business. (AP Photo/David Klepper)(Credit: AP)

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — After 32 years of surveying Interstate 95 from his perch atop a pest control business, Rhode Island’s big blue bug is getting a promotion — and a makeover to go with it.

The towering termite named Nibbles Woodaway now sports a necktie, a sartorial step up befitting his new stature as corporate namesake. New England Pest Control owner Stephan Goldman said Monday he’s changing his company’s name to Big Blue Bug Solutions to honor the blue behemoth that long ago achieved iconic status in Rhode Island.

“Everyone knows the big blue bug. The bug is more famous than the name of my company,” Goldman said after unveiling Nibbles’ new neckwear, a spotted tie that nicely matches his compound eyes.

The name change comes as two of Goldman’s sons prepare to take over the business that his father started in 1935. Nibbles arrived in 1980, after the company moved to its present location south of downtown Providence and was looking for a way to advertise.

At 4,000 pounds and easily visible from a busy stretch of interstate, Nibbles makes a convincing pitchman. The big bug made the list of quirky attractions compiled by “Roadside America” and scored a cameo in the movie “Dumb and Dumber.” Couples have gotten engaged under the big bug. One woman had Nibbles tattooed on her leg.

“You ask anyone — where is the blue bug? And they know where it is,” said Providence Mayor Angel Taveras, who rode a lift to the company’s roof on Monday to get a close look at Nibbles.

Nibbles’ appearance changes through the year, boasting reindeer antlers at Christmas, Uncle Sam’s red, white and blue top hat on July 4, or a baseball cap from the minor league Pawtucket Red Sox. The 58-foot-long insect is built from steel and fiberglass.

Nibbles was supposed to be purple, which Goldman said is the actual color of termites when viewed under a microscope. But the sun faded the paint to blue. Good thing, too: Big purple bug doesn’t sound as good, he said.

Goldman initially worried that Rhode Island residents would call Nibbles an eyesore but said he’s never received any complaints. He said one woman told him she made sure to include a ride past the enormous insect whenever taking her young children to the doctor or dentist.

“They wouldn’t want to go, but she’d say ‘We can drive by the big blue bug on the way home,’” he said. “And that did it.”

More David Klepper.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments are not enabled for this story.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations