An attempt to erect a 16-tonne ice pop in a New York square froze traffic and created a sticky situation for the company behind the stunt.

The soft-drink maker Snapple tried to get into the Guinness World Records book by installing the 7½-metre confection in downtown Manhattan on Tuesday.

Snapple had been trying to promote a new line of frozen treats by setting a record for the world's largest popsicle. (AP photo)

As a construction crane began to haul it upright, a pink tide of kiwi-strawberry-flavoured fluid spread across Union Square.

The slush forced pedestrians to flee for higher ground. Firefighters closed off several roads, fearing that vehicles and bicycles could slip.

"What was unsettling was that the fluid just kept coming," Stuart Claxton of the Guinness Book of World Records told the New York Daily News.

'What was unsettling was that the fluid just kept coming.'

"It was quite a lot of fluid. On a hot day like this, you have to move fast."

The frozen treat had to be fully standing to beat the world record, set in Holland in 1997 by a 6½-metre, nine-tonne ice pop.

Snapple called off the stunt while the ice pop was only partially lifted, fearing that it would collapse in the 27 C heat.

The company was trying to get publicity for a new line of frozen treats called Snapple on Ice.