How the Arizona Vintage Sign Coalition Saved a Piece of Phoenix History
Donna Reiner and friends have saved another iconic Phoenix sign. Modern Phoenix
From the Phoenix New Times: Sometimes you just have to rescue a big, pretty sign from a building that is about to be demolished.
“That’s what I think, anyway,” said Donna Reiner of the Arizona Vintage Sign Coalition. “If the sign is a good one, you just have to step in and try to save it.”
Rescuing a giant sign was more difficult during the Christmas holiday season, she pointed out. “But then it’s also easier to get a huge sign down off a building when that building is going to be torn down. Because then we don’t have to be careful not to damage the building. And in this case, that building is now as flat as a pancake.”
“Stinson Man” sign’s future uncertain
Also known locally as “Big Jim,” the town of Gouldsboro looks to preserve its iconic signboard. Islander Photo By Letitia Baldwin
From the Mount Desert Islander: GOULDSBORO — Crossing the Kittery-Portsmouth Bridge decades ago, many Maine-bound vacationers’ children leaned out the window and looked for the giant, booted fisherman towering over the north lane of the I-95 interstate freeway. The 40-foot-tall mariner, clad in a yellow sou’wester and matching oilskins, held a can of sardines that read “Maine Sardines Welcome You to Vacationland & Sardineland.”
Illuminated at night, the colorful wooden sign was an effective visual tool for promoting Stinson Canning, Addison Packing Co. and other sardine canneries in coastal Maine. But the Maine Sardine Council’s memorable sign also served as a landmark for returning Mainers as well as seasonal visitors signaling the start of their carefree days on the coast and at inland camps on ponds, lakes and rivers.
“Big Jim,” as some fondly nicknamed the wooden billboard, took a beating from the elements and eventually was reconstructed with metal framing. But the Maine Sardine Council, which ceased functioning in 1998, took down the iconic signboard in the 1980s. Big Jim’s whereabouts became a mystery for northbound motorists unless they chanced to visit Gouldsboro, where the same sign has fulfilled the same function greeting folks pulling into the public wharf and the former Maine Fair Trade seafood processing plant in Prospect Harbor village. It was Calvin Stinson Jr. who saved the sign from being demolished, seeing it as a promotional device to promote his company’s Beach Cliff brand of canned sardines.
Watch the video of Crab Devil collective saving the historic sign at Tampa’s Fun-Lan drive-in
Crab Devil collective members work on dismantling Fun-Lan’s historic entrance sign. Michael M Sinclair/YouTube
From Creative Loafing: Today Tampa’s Crab Devil collective released a video was released showing members taking on the arduous process of preserving Fun-Lan Drive-In and Swap Shop’s historic entrance sign.
In just over four minutes, the video—directed and edited by local filmmaker and Creative Loafing Tampa Bay contributor Michael M Sinclair—documents the process of saving the sign. Getting the sign to come apart and move safely was easier said than done.
Bishop’s 4th Street Diner in Newport escapes demolition — for now
Bishop’s 4th Street Diner has been at its current spot on JT Connell Highway since 1967. Sean Flynn/Newport Daily News
From the Newport Daily News: NEWPORT — The Planning Board on Monday night granted permits to Colbea Enterprises to demolish its Shell gas station convenience store, car wash, gas pump canopy structure and an abandoned warehouse on the property at the JT Connell Highway roundabout.
The Bishop’s Diner was left out of the demolition process — for now.
Colbea owns the land on which the aluminum diner car and an attached building sit and has made clear it wants the diner removed and building razed. Steve and Vicki Bishop own the diner and the building.
10 of the World’s Most Beautiful Fast-Food Restaurants
Richard Collett
From Atlas Obscura: There’s an implicit irony that goes into a beautiful fast-food restaurant. While calorie-heavy and problematic, fast food remains a culinary mainstay around the world as a cheaper and often more convenient option than any other. To facilitate both affordability and speed, fast-food restaurants are generally plain. For many people, the interior of their own car is a preferable dining room to one that features hard plastic benches and swooping digital advertisements on every flat surface.
But beautiful fast-food restaurants exist. Many set up shop in historical buildings after locals refuse to see them bulldozed. Other times, their beauty is on the outside, as with California’s Linda Mar Taco Bell, which offers a life-affirming ocean view. And surely Colonel Sanders never imagined that, one day, there would be a KFC covered in Tang-dynasty Chinese poetry.