Looking for feedback

I was shooting at our city's Veterans Day Parade and one of the parade Marshalls was the woman in the famous Life magazine picture "V-J Day, 1945, Times Square". The first photo is the original shot, but I wanted to edit out all the "busyness" of the parking meter and extra people... so the second picture is the edit... but did I crop too much? Feedback welcome!
ORIGINAL

I'm no expert, but I don't like the crop because the new 'feel' is that you were trying to photograph the poster and got some heads in the way.

I hope it isn't out of place for me to share my feedback without having a recommendation to improve it :-\

I think it's cropped too much, cropped picture of just a head is not pleasing to the eye. But, I think there's not much to work with that picture...its just a snap shot at difficult angle.

I've seen that image, its very iconic.

Gig103 wrote in post #15209999
I'm no expert, but I don't like the crop because the new 'feel' is that you were trying to photograph the poster and got some heads in the way.

I hope it isn't out of place for me to share my feedback without having a recommendation to improve it :-\

I see exactly what you mean... and don't apologize, I said I was looking for feedback!