Last Chance Liquors celebrates restored vintage neon sign with free community event
(Courtesy: Aaron Armstrong)
From WKRN: NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Nashville’s oldest operational liquor store is celebrating the revival of a piece of its past with a special event on Dickerson Pike Thursday evening.
According to co-owner Aaron Armstrong, the sign for Last Chance Liquors has been out of order for going on 30 years, and refurbishing it to its former glory was a pet project of his and his business partner’s.
“When we purchased the store, the sign was not in operation,” Armstrong told News 2. “In talking to a previous owner, we think it’s been not functioning for as long as 30 years. It was something that we wanted to do from the very beginning, but as us being new owners and trying to figure out the lay of the land, we waited. Now that we were in a point to be able to make that investment, we’re really excited to have it fully operational again.”
“Saving Americana!” Crew restores hundreds of vintage neon signs
From WTVF: NASHVILLE, Tenn. — At a farm in Maury County, the buzz of insects at summer time is what you hear outside. Inside was a different buzz, the sound of signs carrying neon lights.
“Saving Americana!” Klint Griffin said, surrounded by vintage signs. “I think people have an emotional attachment to a fonder age.”
“This is off a Country Boy restaurant out of Missouri,” Griffin said, gesturing to a vintage sign of a boy carrying a fishing pole.
Griffin has long worked in antiques, but he’s taken on a special interest in neon signs the past ten years.
West Nashville’s Pinkie the Elephant gets much-needed repairs before transport to new home
COURTESY: SPENCER CONNELL
From WKRN: WEST NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The fate of a beloved West Nashville landmark was up in the air after a car dealership shut down, until a local craftsman and a business owner stepped in to save the popular pachyderm.
Pinkie the Elephant is an iconic West Nashville figure. The life-sized elephant has sat on the University Motors car dealership lot for years.
Thanks to Spencer Connell, a local craftsman, Pinkie will live on for much longer in Nashville.
St. Johns County to issue demolition permit for Magic Beach Motel
Posted Wednesday, August 6, 2025 2:30 pm
From The Recorder: St. Johns County, Florida, issued a statement Tuesday, Aug. 5, saying it will issue a demolition permit for the Magic Beach Motel, located at 50 Vilano Road, in accordance with state law and following review by county staff.
The property, constructed in 1951, and designated in 2021 as a “significant cultural resource” under the county’s Land Development Code, is partially located seaward of the Coastal Construction Control Line. As a result, the demolition falls under the Resiliency and Safe Structures Act provisions, enacted by the Florida Legislature.
Under this state law, local governments are prohibited from restricting or preventing the demolition of qualifying structures, including those located seaward of the Coastal Construction Control Line.
Why this Los Angeles motel is the city’s latest landmark
The motel pool is visible from the road. (Brannon Boswell/CoStar)
From CoStar: The Hollywood Premiere Motel may not have hosted A-listers, but the mid-century roadside inn crowned with an eye-catching neon sign is getting some high-profile attention.
The 42-room motel at 5333 Hollywood Blvd. has won historic-cultural monument status from the Los Angeles City Council, making it the city’s only stand-alone motel to receive this type of historic designation.
The Premiere’s new status aims to ensure its throwback exterior will survive, imposing a strict review of any proposed alterations or demolition. It comes as more of Southern California’s aging motels are renovated without erasing their mid-century character, a trend that provides an added wrinkle for some commercial property owners, investors and developers.
Woman determined to save New Jersey’s diners, beginning with relic in her hometown
From ABC7.com: LITTLE FALLS, New Jersey — The shuttered Little Falls Diner in New Jersey is a special part of Dana Schaeffer’s past. Now she’s on a mission to give it a future.
The historic diner never reopened after a fire broke out in the basement back in March 1995. Schaeffer remembers walking past the shuttered diner as a child with her parents — and being intrigued with the scene inside, visible but inaccessible, so close yet a world away.
“I’d peer into the window thinking about how I can open this diner and what I could do with it,” she said.
A Diner Gets a Second Life in Front of the Camera
Kirsten Luce for The New York Times
From The New York Times: For years it had a side hustle, appearing in movies — everything from the spy thriller “The Good Shepherd” in the early 2000s to the yet-to-be-released monster film “The Bride!” It also turned up in television shows and commercials long after it was no longer a restaurant, which is what the diner on Wythe Avenue in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, used to be. Officially, anyway.
Now the diner is going into entertainment full time.
In the next few weeks it will be moved to the film-and-television production studio at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where shows like “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” have been filmed. The move will save the diner from the fate of so many like it: demolition.