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Historic Landmark Signs: Should Tucson preserve its neon heritage? (video)

Pamela Powers writes the Tucson Progressive blog on the Tucson Citizen website. She has had more than 30 years of experience in written, visual, and electronic communication—including freelance writing, photography, graphic design, and consulting. In addition to blogging for the Citizen, she is the Managing Editor for an international medical research journal.

Powers has authored medical research articles, print magazine and newspaper stories, and numerous cancer prevention and self-help publications.

She has been a blogger since 2006 and joined the ranks of Tucson Citizen bloggers in October 2010.

Powers holds a masters’ degree in public health from The University of Arizona and a bachelors’ degree in journalism from The Ohio State University. She is a native of Amherst, Ohio but has lived in Tucson since 1981. A self-described Renaissance woman, Powers is also a Mom, a Nana, an artist, a political activist, an architecture buff, a frustrated desert gardener, an avid dancer, and live-music aficionado.

Tucson’s stringent 1980s sign code (plus multiple street-widening projects) have done much to clean up the billboards and over-sized signs on our streets, but every good law can stand some refinement from time to time.

Under the sign code, if you have a non-compliant sign and you want to take it down to fix it, you can’t put it back up. Also, if the property is sold, and the new owner wants to put a different type of business in that location, the non-compliant sign has to be replaced (although they can ask for variances).

In the current code, there are no provisions for retaining and fixing non-compliant signs that may be deemed historically or culturally important– part of Tucson’s sense of place . (An unintended consequence of this is the preponderance of empty sign shells and broken neon around town.)

For two years, a group of Tucson preservationists has been working on an Historic Landmark Sign Amendment to the Tucson Sign Code. This amendment defines two sets of signs that may be able to qualify as historic: Classic Historic Landmark Signs (those built before December 31, 1960) and Transitional Historic Landmark Signs (those built between 1961 and 1974, inclusive). It also provides guidelines to define historic. Besides age, the technical guidelines include: historic design motifs (exposed neon or incandescent bulbs), materials and construction from the time period, and non-rectangular shape. In addition, there are aesthetic guidelines which emphasize the cultural or historic importance of the sign and address whether or not it has been changed too much already to be deemed historic.

4th of July at Lodge on the Desert (2011) | Tucson On The Cheap, LLC

Posted on | June 30, 2011 | No Comments

Lodge on the Desert will be hosting the “Best Hot Dog You Ever Ate” this Monday to celebrate the Fourth of July , 2011.  They will serve an American Kobe Beef Hot Dog that can be dressed in a variety of ways: Chicago Style, Tucson Style, New York Style, or Kansas City Style (11.95). Hot dogs and specialty drink prices will be offered from 11am-9pm.

Oh, boy! That sounds good to me. Nothing finer than a fabulous hot dog on the Fourth of July. See you there!

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