Signs from a different time
Julie Turner fondly remembers when neon was king in a much different city of iconic signs. So she has put together a collection of screen prints of the ones she loves best
THERE ARE ENCOURAGING signs of revitalization on Barton Street East with all kinds of new businesses starting up. But not so much in this block of lingering urban decay just west of Ottawa Street.
It’s a part of town where the signs say “Keep Out” instead of “Welcome” — where the winds of change are cruel and leave only a chilly reminder of better days.
But Julie Turner, 48, knows a time when the area was more prosperous, when people would come out in droves to the now-closed Bowlero bowling alley.
“My grandparents moved to the east end when it was first being developed and this was my grandmother’s bowling alley for years and years,” she says, pointing to the worn and faded Bowlero sign that remains as a reminder of days gone by.
“I remember going there when I was a kid. It was something else when that sign lit up. It was really quite beautiful.”
More recently Turner decided to direct her
nostalgia for that sign and others that she remembered from her youth into a series of screen prints.
As well as Bowlero, she has produced prints of the Pagoda Chop Suey House sign, the City Motor Hotel, Hendry’s Shoes, Gulliver’s Travels Motor Hotel, Hutch’s Restaurant and Cheapies Records.
Some of the signs are still operational, such as Cheapies Records downtown. Others are long gone like Gulliver’s Travels. The Hendry’s sign on Barton has been repurposed from advertising shoes to promoting hair cutting. The Pagoda sign still stands at the northeast corner of King and John. But the closest eatery is selling pizza.
“It started for me with the City Motor Hotel. I grew up in that neighbourhood. I watched it go from a vibrant family restaurant business to a down in the dumps place to completely gone,” said Turner, a parttime artist who works in health care human resources as a day job.
“When they tore it down, it struck me that it completely changed the landscape. I drive past that empty lot every day and it doesn’t look right to me.”
TURNER LIVED in Guelph for about a dozen years, part of that time being a student at the University of Guelph. But she found herself longing for her hometown, and moved back to Hamilton about a decade ago.
The ensuing years have seen great change in the city, especially with improvements downtown. But she came to feel that some things were being left behind, such as the iconic landmarks of her youth.
“I remember when I was kid, they used to say ‘We’ll meet under the Pagoda sign.’ And everyone knew what that meant.”
Tony Bianchi, of Sunset Neon on Cascade Street, says “I think people have a fondness for old signs because they have character, especially neon signs. You don’t get that a lot with modern sign-making.”
Bianchi said there was a golden era for neon signs through the 1940s into the 1960s.
“In the ’70s there was a greater use of plastic that used fluorescent lights instead of neon, and the signs were not nearly as eye-catching.”
Bianchi’s company earlier this year finished a massive restoration of the Sam the Record Man sign in Toronto and it has been installed near its former location, overlooking Yonge-Dundas Square.
More recently, Sunset Neon has been hired to replicate the original marquee from the Westdale Theatre in Hamilton. The theatre is going through a massive restoration to bring it back to its former glory, and the marquee is part of that project.