Historic Sign Removed in Tucson

It’s always bittersweet to hear about an old sign’s removal. On one hand, such a step represents progress — and the opportunity for a shop to gain work by designing, fabricating and/or installing its replacement. However, when the old sign is removed, its surrounding community loses a touchstone to an earlier era. If a community loses all vestiges of its history, it can be reduced to, as Gertrude Stein famously put it, "there is no there, there."

Such a removal occurred with the more than 50-year-old sign that’s removed from the Grant-Stone Shopping Center in Tucson. According to an article in the Arizona Daily Star, work being done by the Regional Transportation Authority would’ve eventually required its removal. On November 12, the day of the sign’s removal, Dirk J. Arnold, proprietor of Endangered Architecture, where he preserves historic signs, announced that he and a group of approximately a dozen neon preservationists would work to preserve the Grant-Stone sign. Currently, the sign resides at Tucson-based Addisigns.

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