City likely to OK land for neon sign storage

Erin Neff

Tuesday, June 20, 2000 | 11:12 a.m.

Info

For more information about the Neon Museum and its fund-raising efforts, call (702) 229-5366 or check out its web page at www.ci.las-vegas.nv.us/neon.html

Today's megaresorts beckon diners with gourmet food and Picassos, but it was the soft buzz of an electric blue sign flashing "CAFE" that once did the trick just as well.

At once garish advertising and cultural heritage, neon is considered by many to be a truly Las Vegas art form.

Now the Neon Museum seems poised to fulfill a long-held dream to refurbish old neon, display the signs and point visitors on a walking and driving tour through the city's cultural history.

The Las Vegas City Council will likely approve an agreement Wednesday giving the museum a sliver of land to be used temporarily for storing a huge batch of signs that will soon need a home.

The site, on the northeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and McWilliams Avenue, is across the street from a larger parcel of land the museum hopes to lease from the city for a bone yard and information center.

"It is so exciting to know that these signs will be saved in perpetuity," said Dedee Nave, a Neon Musuem board member and planning chair.

The city's oldest and biggest neon producer, Young Electric Sign Co., plans to close its sign bone yard to give the company more space for its ongoing sign manufacturing.

"We'll be clearing our bone yard, and any signs with historic significance will be going to the Neon Museum," said Steve Weeks, the sign company's assistant division manager.

A bone yard is like a graveyard for unplugged and rusting signs in need of repair and restoration. The sign company first began designing casino signs in 1932, the year after gambling was legalized, and has been producing neon every since.

"One of the things that we're not very good at is preserving buildings," said Frank Wright, historian at the Nevada State Museum and Historical Society. "To look back at Las Vegas before all the themed resorts, you have to look at the signs that were on the buildings."

The Hacienda Hotel's 40-foot-tall horse and rider welcomed gamblers through the casino's doors beginning in 1966. Now restored and erected on a 24-foot pole at Las Vegas Boulevard and Fremont Street, the famous cowboy was the Neon Museum's first restoration project.

The 1966 genie lamp from the original Aladdin Hotel, the 1961 Flame Restaurant sign, the 1956 Anderson Dairy mascot and the 1940 Chief Hotel Court signs have since been refurbished and erected along the Fremont Street Experience.

Five more signs, including originals from the Red Barn on Tropicana Avenue and Dot's Flowers, will soon join them.

With the sign company's old products added to the museum's collection, Nave said she hopes to be able to group similar signs together and find new display sites.

Ultimately, the museum's bone yard will serve as a starting point for tourists and residents alike to view the restoration work that will turn castoff signs into public art.

"There are plans to have a map showing a walking and potentially a driving tour," said Mark Paris, president of the Fremont Street Experience. "It could also provide for educational things to happen for schools."

The agreement between the city and the museum requires the museum to secure a .66-acre site for the temporary storage of the signs. If approved Wednesday, the museum will start using the site July 1 on a month-to-month basis.

In addition to the signs at the bone yard and the ones rehung around town, the museum also plans to include some current signs as a living history element to its planned tour map.

Wright said he doesn't think tourists will be the only ones interested in the neon signs.

"In the past tourists came to Las Vegas and marveled at the signs but at home people were used to it," Wright said. "Now I think that since neon is not as prominent as it was, everyone would be interested."

Richard Hooker, a senior cultural program specialist for the city of Las Vegas, said he thinks "locals appreciate neon as much as tourists."

"So many of these signs are references to a Las Vegas they grew up in," Hooker said.

The Neon Museum will soon hire a development director to help with several fund-raisers. Signs in the museum's collection cost thousands to restore.

A pool shooter sign, for example, is estimated to cost $1,700 while the Golden Nugget "bullnose" will run almost $200,000 and its old canopy another $115,000.

The museum selects signs first for their historical significance and second for their artistry. That may explain the simple cartoonish red milk mascot's inclusion along with the spectacular gold Aladdin's lamp.

Jeff Wilson, who is in town this week from San Bernardino, Calif., said neon images come to mind when he thinks of Vegas trips while clerking at a grocery store back home.

"From the time you first see Las Vegas from the highway, you're just fixed on the lights," said Wilson, 35, outside Binion's Horseshoe Club downtown. "I've been coming here for years, and it's amazing to see how the neon and the lights change.

"I'd definitely go look at the older signs," Wilson said. "It is like art."