Subscribe | UPI Odd Newsletter Subscribe BOSTON, Oct. 30 (UPI) -- Union Products Inc., a Massachusetts company that has been churning out pink plastic flamingo lawn ornaments for 49 years, is closing its doors on Nov. 1. The manufacturer in Leominster, northwest of Boston, stopped making the long-legged kitschy birds in June and let many workers go, blaming rising energy costs, soaring prices for plastic resin and a loss of financing, the Boston Herald reported. Advertisement The injection molding company also made other animals including cows and penguins, along with planters and bird baths, but the pink flamingoes were the firm's trademark, the Herald said. The flamingos were designed in 1957 by art school graduate Donald Featherstone, who went on to become Union's president until his retirement in 2000. Featherstone dismisses criticisms the birds were an embarrassment to U.S. culture. "They touched the fact that we like tropical elegance, but we can't afford it so we settle for plastic," he told the Washington Post in a 2001 interview.
