Columnist Susan Snyder: Displays are signs of the times

Friday, March 23, 2001 | 5:19 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column also appears Tuesdays and Fridays in the Las Vegas Sun. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

It took a crane company, a hotel owner, a city agency, a private foundation, three trips across downtown and a couple of days.

But by Thursday afternoon all eight of the 15-foot letters had been plucked from atop the old Showboat hotel and delivered safely to the Neon Museum's temporary "boneyard."

"There's a lot of real community effort here," said Richard Hooker, the Las Vegas Cultural and Community Affairs staffer who unlocked the gate for Thursday's delivery.

The boneyard is located across from a 2-acre plot of downtown land that the museum board leases from the city for $1 a year.

In a city parks building a few paces away, the walls of Hooker's office are covered with photos of Las Vegas' neon signs, lists of what the museum board hopes to acquire next and the architect's conceptual design for a proposed 6,000-square-foot visitor center and outdoor neon sign gallery.

"Each sign represents a building or a business that's no longer there," said Nancy Deaner, a museum board member and assistant director of the cultural affairs department.

"We're blowing up our buildings. But we're saving our signs."

It's harder than it sounds. Signs that aren't trashed with the wrecking ball's first swing often end up in the hands of private collectors.

"There are signs we'd love to have back that are in California and all over," Deaner said. "It's been a 10-year odyssey just to get these. It's been a real nail-biter. It's just a miracle that we've got what we've got."

What they've got are nine signs on display along Fremont Street and almost half as many more stored in the boneyard. Another 50 or more are promised for permanent loan by the Young Electric Sign Co. The company has been designing and installing neon signs here for decades. "They have signs piled on signs," Deaner said of YESCO's treasure trove.

Hooker and Deaner also have piles of photographs, artists' renderings and negatives from the local neon sign makers who designed the flashing, blinking, colored beacons that brought old Las Vegas' nights to life.

Flashing cowboys and martini glasses may not fit some people's idea of "historic." But Las Vegas doesn't have many icons that have been around for 50 or 60 years.

"That's 'old' for our town," Deaner said. "People look at our town as being a mirror for contemporary culture. Tin and bulbs are just as valuable as mortar and brick."

And while the locals plug away at preserving our renowned neon, members of the American Sign Museum foundation were in town this week promoting a prototype for their exhibit that they hope to base in Las Vegas. It was unveiled during the International Sign Association's exposition that ended Saturday.

The American Sign Museum would be national in content with all types of signs. The Neon Museum would remain responsible for procuring and preserving the city's neon history, Deaner said.

Signs are important. New ones tell us where we're heading. But the old ones show us where we've been, and that's a fragile artifact in towns that are growing as fast as Las Vegas.

"A lot of our board members grew up here," Deaner said. "We want to feel like where we grew up is important."