Elegy in Neon

A liquor store in Ridgewood, Queens, declined Con Edison’s suggestion to replace neon with LED lights
The photographers James and Karla Murray
have taken it as their personal mission to
document those beloved
places that give the city its character before they fade away.
In 2008,
they published the book “Store Front,”
a tombstone-size elegy to a disappearing
New York of Optimo cigar
shops, Lower East Side brassiere wholesalers and kosher dairy joints.

Light fantastic: Photographer catalogs the glowing neon signs illuminating store fronts across New York City

New York: Photographer catalogs the glowing neon signs illuminating store fronts across city | Mail Online

The
neon lights of New York are the subject of a collection of photographs

showing off the glowing marquees in the city that never sleeps.

Photographers
James and Karla Murray captured the signs illuminating

establishments
across the city and compiled the snapshots in their

book 'New York
Nights' published in December 2012.

The
book is organized into seven sections that highlights sings in

Manhattan below 14th Street, 14th Street to 34th Street, 34th Street to

59th Street, above 59th Street and then The Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn.

DispL.A. Case #27: L.A.'s First Neon Sign

Neon would become synonymous
with Los Angeles and in the following decades our streets
would become
an electric dance of art and advertising that continues to this day. We
even have
a museum devoted to neon art. Those original signs are long gone, but when the building
was remade into the “Packard Lofts” in 2006 the owners decided to pay homage with a replica
sign that once again lights up that corner of the city.

Famous Baxter Hotel neon sign re-lit in Bozeman

BOZEMAN - You can't live in Bozeman without seeing the iconic Baxter
Hotel,
and its trademark neon sign. A re-lighting ceremony was held
Thursday night on Main Street.

City officials and Sen. Max Baucus
were on hand for the celebration as the 40-year
dormant sign graced the
Bozeman skyline once again.

"It definitely will reset the
Bozeman skyline and we're thinking that you'll be able to see it
when
you're flying into town, or from quite far away," Amy McDonald, Baxter
Hotel General Manager, said.

Most of the sign is original with only the paint and the neon itself needing to be replaced during refurbishment.

Sign smashes into Highland Park law

Neon sign at Billy Corgan's Highland Park tea shop catches city's eye - chicagotribune.com

The neon signage, measuring 13 feet from side to side,
was designed by
the Smashing Pumpkins frontman himself after a font created by
legendary
designer Yves Saint Laurent, according to a city memo. It's roughly
five times
larger than the local zoning ordinance permits.
(Handout, / January 14, 2013)