April 2010

In Charlotte, North Carolina, iconic examples of urban signage aren’t simply pointed to and admired–they’re being registered as historic landmarks. “We feel like protecting things that make Charlotte unique is important,” Diane Althouse, executive director of Historic Charlotte Inc., has told The Charlotte Observer.

Fun and funky commercial masterpieces like the JFG Coffee sign, spangled by incandescent light bulbs, are being rescued from warehouse ignominy and restored to even higher visibility, in this case with a $15,000 grant.

“People are drawn to these signs for a lot of different reasons,” the Observer story says.

Now they tell us! It’s a great idea to keep highways sign-free, but when the icy winds of Lady Bird Johnson’s beautification blew across the state of Maine decades ago, the rules (no off-site commercial signs within 660 feet of a federal highway) were horizontally applied instead of interpreted, so in the name of compliance, we lost brain dazzlers like the huge incandescent “Drink Coca Cola” sign that lit up Congress Square for generations.

Many of Maine’s most entertaining urban signs were struck down in order to legislate beauty, and they came down in a hurry. Oh, some people missed them–notably artist Jon Legere, who took every opportunity to include vanished signage in his nostalgic cityscapes of Portland–but for the most part, anyone who dared to speak up for commercial iconography must have felt like “a lion in a den of savage Daniels.”

Even sadder to consider nowadays is the fact that the law’s original language was not bereft of exemptions, allowing for signs “determined by the State, subject to the approval of the Secretary, to be landmark signs…or historic or artistic significance, the preservation of which would be consistent with the purposes” of the Highway Beautification Act. So why wasn’t this provision seized upon and Portland’s most characteristic signs given the landmark status they deserved (and needed to survive)?

For those of us who don’t remember some of these signs and therefore can’t mourn them (but loved the unforgettable Domino Sugar sign in the movie He’s Just Not That Into You), have you noticed that the B&M Baked Beans plant in Portland has been without its famous rooftop sign since July 13, 2009, when the wind blew down, and subsequently destroyed, the 10-foot by 70-foot landmark? Isn’t that an empty feeling? Now multiply that sense of loss across a whole city. Though plant manager Art Hemmerlein promises, “The new replacement sign [by Sign One, Inc.] will be a better, green situation, using LED lighting and just one-third of the power of the previous sign,” it still wasn’t quite up at press time, awaiting better weather.

The crowning irony: In its heart, Portland Public Library’s new 17- by 21-foot digital screen that’s going to transform Monument Square is (shhh) a sign.

If anyone reading us would like to share a photo or memories of the missing signage we might have saved like Charlotte, please email them to staff@portlandmonthly.com.