City lights: Two men pursue their passion to save Seattle's neon
But as soon as the sun goes down — and the lights go up — they come alive, beckoning to all with a thousand and one seductive messages: Hot Coffee, Cold Drinks, Save Big, Eat Now, Kitchenettes & TV, Cocktails & Home Cookin', Come On In!, Come Unto Me. Giant arrows blink and beacon. Italian chefs wink and cajole. Coffee cups steam, cocktail glasses clink, and pink elephants spin and spray, spin and spray, all through the night.
They're neon signs — or, as they were known back in the early days when neon was first introduced, "liquid fire" — and Seattle is ablaze with them. From spinning globes to flying fish to performing seals to waltzing couples, we're surrounded by a kaleidoscope of flaming commercial icons, some, like the one gracing the U District's Blue Moon Tavern, dating back to the 1930s. As surely as you should add Bardahl to your gas, we live in a neon city.
Magical history tour
"I've loved neon signs forever," said Feliks Banel, deputy director of Seattle's Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI). "And I've always been a champion of saving them."
For the past few years, Banel and MOHAI have been doing just that, quietly preserving some of Seattle's most beloved neon icons before they're lost forever. In addition to the gigantic "R" that once stood atop the Rainier Brewery, the museum has tucked away the 26-foot-tall Washington Natural Gas blue flame, the old Warshal's Sporting Goods sign, a neon sign from the 6-11 Tavern (an early gay bar in Seattle), a pair of neon boxers from the old Turf Restaurant, the neon sign from the now-defunct Doghouse restaurant, and the original Seattle Post-Intelligencer sign from the late 1920s.
Once the museum settles into its new downtown location at Eighth and Pike (slated for 2007), these battered pieces of neon history will be restored and put on display. In the meantime, MOHAI has prepared an aperitif — a guided tour of some of the city's most spectacular signs of the past and present.
"We'll be looking at the quintessential Seattle neon, the real icons," Banel said of the night-time tour, scheduled for Saturday, March 6. "The Pink Elephant Car Wash, the Bardahl sign in Ballard, the P-I globe, Dick's."
Many of these landmark signs date from the '50s and '60s, when electrical advertising (as it was sometimes called) was in its heyday. Companies like Epcon (Electrical Products Consolidated), S & S Sign Co., National Sign Co., and Tube Art produced dozens of colorful, creative emblems for Seattle-area businesses, including the Rainier R, the Pink Elephant, Sunny Jim, the P-I globe and neon signs for the Camlin, Roosevelt and Vance hotels, Andy's Diner, Filson's, Grandma's Cookies and the good old Doghouse.
There were no marketing departments or branding strategists to consult with back then, just a sign salesman, a graphic designer and a couple of guys in the back shop, all conspiring to create a bit of memorable commercial magic.
Luckily, some of that magic survives today. Banel said MOHAI's two-hour "windshield museum" tour will visit nearly 20 historic neon signs, including smaller neighborhood gems such as the Buckaroo Tavern in Fremont, with time to stop off here and there "so we can listen to the buzz of the transformers." Stories, scientific principles and historical tidbits will be provided by both Banel and Jay Blazek, the man responsible for restoring the giant Rainier R.
Mister Neon
Owner of Western Neon, based in the heart of Seattle's Sodo District, Blazek first became involved with MOHAI when he was contracted by Tully's to top its newly-purchased headquarters (the former Rainier Brewery) with a spiffy green neon "T." First order of business, of course, was the removal of the old Rainier R, which former brewery-owner Stroh's had donated to the museum's collection. Blazek and Banel met and a friendship — and mission of sorts — was forged.
"Jay is a real ambassador for neon," said Banel. "He really shares our passion."
Passion may be putting it mildly; the man has neon in his blood. A second-generation glass bender, Blazek learned the neon trade in Wisconsin from his father, who ran a glass-bending school and literally wrote the book (four, in fact) on the subject. Blazek went to work at Western Neon in 1987, purchased the business from his glass-bending brother in 1989, and has been up to his eyeballs in Seattle's neon — and its stories — ever since.
"When the Rainier 'R' was originally in place, it rotated," Blazek said. "But when they put in I-5, they made them stop because it was such a distraction for people in their cars."
After that, Blazek said, a Rainier employee had the unenviable job of climbing up the tower's ladders and through the rooftop hatch twice a day to manually rotate the sign 180 degrees, so the more ornate side of the sign — the one covered with dozens of incandescent bulbs — would always face rush-hour traffic.
"Having been up there a few times, I can tell you it's a pretty precarious ordeal," he said.
When Blazek and his crew climbed up to retrieve the 11-foot-tall letter in early 2000, they discovered more than just tubes, bulbs and the odd bit of graffiti.
"We found a few bullet holes," he said "People had shot at it, thrown rocks at it. We even found one of the (bullet) slugs still inside the metal sign cabinet. We figured someone must have gotten a bad beer."
The bullet-riddled Rainier R was eventually brought back to life, with Blazek donating a good portion of his restoration work to MOHAI. These days, the R lives inside the museum's gift shop, greeting tourists, history buffs and local luminaries alike. ("J.P. Patches came by the day we installed it," Blazek said.)
For Blazek, historic neon signs are more than just a kitschy commercial come-on. They're a unique art form embodying graphic design, basic chemistry and old-fashioned craftsmanship, which too often can end up on the scrap heap, cloistered away in some private collection or, as in the case of Ballard's now-restored Mac's Auto Seat Covers sign, lying forgotten in a field.
"MOHAI has really been leading the charge to save Seattle's neon," he said. "There are lots of organizations that fight for saving historic buildings and architectural pieces. It's great to have a voice for saving the old signs."
Danger signs
They glow, they shimmer, they promise us unlimited amounts of caffeine, pizza and beer, but what exactly is neon, anyway?
According to Blazek, it's not rocket science. Discovered in 1902, neon first came to the U.S. in 1923 in the form of two flashy Packard signs, which literally stopped traffic when installed. Commercial neon quickly caught on and the medium was dubbed "liquid fire," an apt description considering fire is at the heart of the process.
To make a sign, narrow glass tubes are heated over flaming natural-gas jets to about 1,200 degrees F, then bent into a series of desired shapes — a palm tree, a martini glass, Eat at Joe's. To keep the walls of the tube from collapsing during the process, glass benders use latex blow-hoses (think hookah-smoking caterpillars and you'll get the idea), steadily blowing (or sucking) while they manipulate the malleable glass. Once the tubes are bent to specifications, electrodes are added to either end and the whole affair is bombarded with 15,000 volts of electricity.
"I call this the mad scientist part of the operation," said Blazek, showing a visitor around his workshop. "Don't touch that table; it'll kill you."
The bombardment process purges both air and impurities out of the tube, creating a vacuum, into which a tiny amount of gas is added — sometimes neon, but more likely argon.
"The term neon is kind of a misnomer," said Blazek. "About three quarters of neon signs are actually argon."
Different colors can be attained by using different gases (neon is red, argon blue, the rarer krypton and xenon give off green and a faint purple), by applying a phosphor coating to the tubes or by using colored tubing.
"The colored glass is what makes some of the older signs so remarkable," said Blazek. "It's the difference between the P-I globe and your standard 'mall neon.' "
Old remarkable signs fill Blazek's shop: a giant, green SAFETY FIRST sign from Todd Shipyards, the Benders Jewelry Shop sign from downtown Seattle, a deco-style Health Center sign from an old Soap Lake lodge. Some of the signs are for sale (Tacoma's old Frisbee's Bakery and Snack Bar sign is priced at $4,100). Others, such as his "Drink Blatz Beer" are clearly family heirlooms — Blazek's grandfather was a beer distributor and his father worked at ArtKraft, the company that created the sign.
"When I was little, I used to watch my dad work," he said. "And there would be this piece of bent glass lying on the table, totally innocuous, until you turned on a switch and then suddenly, it would become this blazing thing. It would come alive."
Grandma's Cookies along Lake Union is gone; Sunny Jim's beaming face as well. But we still have our Seal's Motel, our Bread of Life Mission, our Pink Elephant and fabulous Blue Flame — and thanks to a few neon ambassadors — a good chance we'll keep the fire alive.
Diane Mapes is a freelance writer who lives in Seattle.
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