It wasn’t just Vancouver turning off the neon. They’re desecrating our buildings, cluttering our streets, and – this is the final indignity – blocking our view of some of the greatest scenery in the world,” Vancouver Sun columnist Tom Ardies wrote in 1966, as quoted in a 2011 Sun article. “They’re outsized, outlandish, and outrageous. It was a representation of the future from the people of the past. People said the signs were garish and distracted from the city’s natural beauty. Not many people would know now, but Vancouver was covered in neon until it became vilified. ![]() Some cities came to view the lighting as tacky and overly commercial. Think seedy hotels and sex shops.ĭespite the connotation, neon continued to be a “powerhouse industry” from the ’40s through the ‘60s, but began a steady decline in the 1970s as even small businesses found cheaper ways to advertise. But by the end of the decade, big businesses had found cheaper alternatives.Īt that point, neon became associated with less desirable businesses, Rinaldi said. They were installed for big corporate chain retailers like car dealers. In the beginning of the decade, shops saw the glowing lights as a novelty, though an expensive one, to keep them competitive. In the 1930s, neon was everywhere in America. The new type of light quickly ousted incandescent bulbs, the former favorite of sign-makers.Ĭlaude started marketing neon signs in Europe and in the early 1920s came to America, where neon’s popularity exploded, said Rinaldi. In 1902, just a few years after neon gas was discovered by British chemists, French engineer Georges Claude sent it coursing through electrified glass tubes, creating neon lighting. They were once in LED’s shoes, beating out an old mode of lighting. Neon lights weren’t always losing ground. There’s a vindictive attitude toward it.” “It’s an iconic part of the 20th century, but it’s been legislated out of existence in some places. “Neon spent most of its career in this country more hated than loved in terms of being banned and put under zoning ordinances,” said neon historian Thomas Rinaldi. Businesses are switching to cheaper, more energy-efficient LED bulbs and municipal planning boards are zoning out neon to decrease the number of unsightly displays. What’s disappointing for enthusiasts like Daniel is that neon is dying. “I was so compelled by it that for two weeks I just drove around and took pictures of neon signs.” “They have just enough peppered through the city where it just comes alive,” said Daniel, a Chicago-based headhunter. L.A.’s neon won over the frequent traveler, who has concluded the City of Angels has the best neon anywhere. It was like it was screaming out to him.ĭaniel loved how a sign could go from ordinary and unremarkable during the day to “talking to you” at night. The red stick figures carrying yellow boxes glowed from the mundane building. ![]() ![]() A few years ago, Brian Daniel was driving around Los Angeles when he spotted a neon sign for a random storage facility.
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