Neon Sign Will Retreat from L.A. Limelight
By Margaret Foster | From Preservation | Mar. 22, 2007
A neon sign that has drip, drip, dripped its message—"The Leak Stops Here"—on Los Angeles' Westwood Boulevard for 60 years is coming down next month.
The animated Clayton Plumbers sign is too expensive to maintain, says its owner, Jim Bacon, who bought the building in 1979 and paid $20,000 to restore the 1947 sign six years ago.
"It got too costly to maintain. It was over $1,000 a month," Bacon says. "I finally said, 'No, I'm not going to do it anymore, that's it. I'm taking it down.'"
A crew will remove the sign, which is about 20 feet tall, on April 16, Bacon says.
"It's become a real heartbreaker for those of us who are trying to figure out how we can keep it in place on the commercial strip when we're about to lose it forever," says Adriene Biondo, chairman of the Los Angeles Conservancy's Modern Committee. "If it goes to a museum, it's dead to us—we'll only be able to visit it, like in a petting zoo."
Bacon is donating the sign to the local Museum of Neon Art, whose members raised the $2,000 for the move.
"We'd like to see it left in place. We're still trying to convince [Bacon]," says Kim Koga, the museum's executive director. "There's just one. It really is a work of art. [Neon advertisements] are meant to be seen in public."
Because the 26-year-old museum lost its lease and closed in December, the Clayton Plumbers sign will be put in storage with the rest of its collection. Koga is seeking a suitable building for the museum's large signs so the museum can reopen.
In the meantime, other historic neon signs are in jeopardy because their owners, like Bacon, can't afford the upkeep. Perhaps the city could find a way to rescue privately owned neon, a form of public art, Koga suggests.
"It would be nice to see the city of L.A. have some fund to maintain these, like streetlights. It would add to the tourism," Koga says. "Ultimately it falls on the business owner, and business owners come and go."
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