Nostalgia for neon remains, but light’s nearly out of fashion
For decades neon distinguished Las Vegas, in ways both garish and sublime.
From the most simple signs to elegant scripts and themed characters — framed in the dark, celebrated artistic designs of Buzz Leming, Betty Willis and Herman Boernge — neon helped define our city.
Accomplished neon benders worked long hours, sometimes around the clock. They were artisans and journeymen who began as apprentices among generations of benders in one family.
Their iconic signs were delivered to the world through photographs and movies. They became Las Vegas’ signature.
But neon is struggling to remain integral to our urban landscape, a dying art with relics laid to rest in the Neon Museum Boneyard.Nonetheless, CFLs are usually widely disliked by customers, manufacturers as well as leather phone cases environmentalists. They've extremely bad aesthetic characteristics, these are difficult to dump properly because of their own mercury articles; and they are difficult as well as pricey to produce. The Strip has been covered with high-tech LED screens, giant televisions bombarding tourists at every turn. Major sign companies have scaled back on neon workers and no eager young neon apprentices bang on their doors, leaving neon’s future uncertain.
At Casino Lighting & Sign, only Bong Gonzalez and Al Ybabao remain in the company’s neon department.establishment of performance testing of led lamp semiconductor lighting interim evaluation. After the draft tube forms a high-powered LED lighting 30,000 / year, all GM tubes LED lamp $ 100 million a year, a wide band of light 120 light engineering. 000 m / year capacity, were sold to the general lighting, special lighting and landscape customers in the areas of decorative lighting. It’s the same with other major sign companies. Young Electric Sign Co., which has been in Las Vegas since the 1930s and helped launch the Golden Age of Neon, has three sign benders left. Nevada Sign and Federal Heath Sign Co. each has one.
“In ’98 we had five guys in here,” says Gonzalez, 42, who was trained by his father and grandfather. “It was hectic. We were working 16-hour days, and you couldn’t rush it.”
Becoming a neon bender was hard work and required extensive training: “My grandpa always said, ‘the more burns you got, the better you’re getting,’?” Gonzalez says. “The burns mean that you’re learning.solder joint is not smooth, LED R4ds packaging is ruined, etc.), and second, static protection is not good, a lot of LED chip is breakdown, lead to micro-light or when power is off phenomenon.”
Now most of the company’s signs are large construction projects, some spanning 200 feet and include the CityCenter and Bellagio signs visible from Interstate 15, the Strip’s Harley-Davidson Cafe motorcycle sign and M&M’s World’s exterior.
“The advent of LED projects definitely affects the volume of neon we do now,” says Joe DeJesus, vice president of Casino Lighting & Sign. “I loved neon. I hoped it would never get replaced,” he says. “They were dear old friends. Stardust was one of the iconic signs of Las Vegas. It was a tragedy to see it go.”
But LED has been bundled in with the green movement and is more economically feasible. It requires less power than neon; it’s less fragile, and it doesn’t have the mercury required to brighten argon (blue element in signs), which makes neon dangerous to handle.
Safety precautions, difficult installation and wiring codes contributed to neon’s demise.your lighting will continue to become common infrared sauna benefits practice over the next several years. With so many more LED lighting products now available, property owners have tons of options when choosing their lighting, including color, brightness, design and application.
“As much as we love neon, we hate it,the color consistency: At present, there are outdoor christmas decorations many packaging factory, also add up to thousands of large and small, of course, also the strength of the strong and weak points.” says John Williams, YESCo’s division manager. “It’s difficult to deal with. It’s all handmade and it’s dangerous. With LED we’ve got millions of colors. With neon, we have less than 100.”
The first neon bulb was created by French engineer Georges Claude in 1902 when he charged a sealed tube of glass containing the inert gas with an electrical current. He was awarded a patent in 1915.
Signs arrived in the U.S. in 1923 when a Los Angeles auto dealership installed two works, and not long after Las Vegas became a hub for the popular form of advertising. The 1940s were Las Vegas neon’s golden years, but neon began losing ground to newer technology as early as the 1970s. Even the Neon Museum’s Boneyard Park includes LED lights made to replicate neon.
Williams says neon still has its place, however, particularly when dealing with the complexity of linear light, dramatic curves and shapes and the desired smooth consistence of illumination, which neon excels at.
Eric Elizondo, a YESCo tube bender, thinks neon will make a comeback. Too many people like the look of neon too much for it to fade away, he says.
Its adoration is celebrated at the Neon Museum, which gets 12,000 visitors annually through scheduled tours. Its Fremont Street gallery includes nine restored, iconic neon signs. Three classic signs have been restored for the scenic byway project on Las Vegas Boulevard — Binion’s Horseshoe, the Silver Slipper and the Bow and Arrow sign — and Danielle Kelly, the museum’s operations manager, says three more signs will be restored and added to the boulevard this fall.
The museum is also reigniting its Living Museum, which includes signs that have been promised to the museum should anything happen to their buildings or businesses. When the museum opens, a brochure will be offered to visitors interested in viewing them.
“People do miss neon,” Kelly says. “It’s who we are. Las Vegas grew up on it on TV, in movies and in print media. People grew up with these signs so they have personal, sincere memories, even if they’ve never been to Las Vegas.”
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman says neon is to Las Vegas what jazz is to New Orleans. The Boneyard, started by YESCo as a storage lot for its old signs, is at least a place for Las Vegas’ neon work to live in perpetuity.
Casinos still call for small neon projects, and downtown Las Vegas businesses have brought in new neon works. City code requires neon or animated signs in the Fremont East Entertainment District and the designated scenic byway that is Las Vegas Boulevard.
Jennifer Cornthwaite, who created and operates Emergency Arts, a downtown multiuse creative space in an old medical building that was once a J.C. Penney, opted for a neon sign because, she says, it stays true to downtown and the preservation of the neighborhood’s history. The animated red cross on the building, accompanied by backlit letters, was made and installed by Casino Lighting & Sign.
Lynn Zook, a historian for Friends of Classic Las Vegas who grew up here in the ’60s, says it’s refreshing to see such efforts.
“LED is creative in its own way,” she says. “But it’s not as humanizing. Back in the day, designers created to catch your eye. It was beautiful to drive down the street back then … It’s all very overwhelming now because your eye doesn’t know where to look.”
For decades neon distinguished Las Vegas, in ways both garish and sublime.
From the most simple signs to elegant scripts and themed characters — framed in the dark, celebrated artistic designs of Buzz Leming, Betty Willis and Herman Boernge — neon helped define our city.
Accomplished neon benders worked long hours, sometimes around the clock. They were artisans and journeymen who began as apprentices among generations of benders in one family.
Their iconic signs were delivered to the world through photographs and movies. They became Las Vegas’ signature.
But neon is struggling to remain integral to our urban landscape, a dying art with relics laid to rest in the Neon Museum Boneyard.Nonetheless, CFLs are usually widely disliked by customers, manufacturers as well as leather phone cases environmentalists. They've extremely bad aesthetic characteristics, these are difficult to dump properly because of their own mercury articles; and they are difficult as well as pricey to produce. The Strip has been covered with high-tech LED screens, giant televisions bombarding tourists at every turn. Major sign companies have scaled back on neon workers and no eager young neon apprentices bang on their doors, leaving neon’s future uncertain.
At Casino Lighting & Sign, only Bong Gonzalez and Al Ybabao remain in the company’s neon department.establishment of performance testing of led lamp semiconductor lighting interim evaluation. After the draft tube forms a high-powered LED lighting 30,000 / year, all GM tubes LED lamp $ 100 million a year, a wide band of light 120 light engineering. 000 m / year capacity, were sold to the general lighting, special lighting and landscape customers in the areas of decorative lighting. It’s the same with other major sign companies. Young Electric Sign Co., which has been in Las Vegas since the 1930s and helped launch the Golden Age of Neon, has three sign benders left. Nevada Sign and Federal Heath Sign Co. each has one.
“In ’98 we had five guys in here,” says Gonzalez, 42, who was trained by his father and grandfather. “It was hectic. We were working 16-hour days, and you couldn’t rush it.”
Becoming a neon bender was hard work and required extensive training: “My grandpa always said, ‘the more burns you got, the better you’re getting,’?” Gonzalez says. “The burns mean that you’re learning.solder joint is not smooth, LED R4ds packaging is ruined, etc.), and second, static protection is not good, a lot of LED chip is breakdown, lead to micro-light or when power is off phenomenon.”
Now most of the company’s signs are large construction projects, some spanning 200 feet and include the CityCenter and Bellagio signs visible from Interstate 15, the Strip’s Harley-Davidson Cafe motorcycle sign and M&M’s World’s exterior.
“The advent of LED projects definitely affects the volume of neon we do now,” says Joe DeJesus, vice president of Casino Lighting & Sign. “I loved neon. I hoped it would never get replaced,” he says. “They were dear old friends. Stardust was one of the iconic signs of Las Vegas. It was a tragedy to see it go.”
But LED has been bundled in with the green movement and is more economically feasible. It requires less power than neon; it’s less fragile, and it doesn’t have the mercury required to brighten argon (blue element in signs), which makes neon dangerous to handle.
Safety precautions, difficult installation and wiring codes contributed to neon’s demise.your lighting will continue to become common infrared sauna benefits practice over the next several years. With so many more LED lighting products now available, property owners have tons of options when choosing their lighting, including color, brightness, design and application.
“As much as we love neon, we hate it,the color consistency: At present, there are outdoor christmas decorations many packaging factory, also add up to thousands of large and small, of course, also the strength of the strong and weak points.” says John Williams, YESCo’s division manager. “It’s difficult to deal with. It’s all handmade and it’s dangerous. With LED we’ve got millions of colors. With neon, we have less than 100.”
The first neon bulb was created by French engineer Georges Claude in 1902 when he charged a sealed tube of glass containing the inert gas with an electrical current. He was awarded a patent in 1915.
Signs arrived in the U.S. in 1923 when a Los Angeles auto dealership installed two works, and not long after Las Vegas became a hub for the popular form of advertising. The 1940s were Las Vegas neon’s golden years, but neon began losing ground to newer technology as early as the 1970s. Even the Neon Museum’s Boneyard Park includes LED lights made to replicate neon.
Williams says neon still has its place, however, particularly when dealing with the complexity of linear light, dramatic curves and shapes and the desired smooth consistence of illumination, which neon excels at.
Eric Elizondo, a YESCo tube bender, thinks neon will make a comeback. Too many people like the look of neon too much for it to fade away, he says.
Its adoration is celebrated at the Neon Museum, which gets 12,000 visitors annually through scheduled tours. Its Fremont Street gallery includes nine restored, iconic neon signs. Three classic signs have been restored for the scenic byway project on Las Vegas Boulevard — Binion’s Horseshoe, the Silver Slipper and the Bow and Arrow sign — and Danielle Kelly, the museum’s operations manager, says three more signs will be restored and added to the boulevard this fall.
The museum is also reigniting its Living Museum, which includes signs that have been promised to the museum should anything happen to their buildings or businesses. When the museum opens, a brochure will be offered to visitors interested in viewing them.
“People do miss neon,” Kelly says. “It’s who we are. Las Vegas grew up on it on TV, in movies and in print media. People grew up with these signs so they have personal, sincere memories, even if they’ve never been to Las Vegas.”
Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman says neon is to Las Vegas what jazz is to New Orleans. The Boneyard, started by YESCo as a storage lot for its old signs, is at least a place for Las Vegas’ neon work to live in perpetuity.
Casinos still call for small neon projects, and downtown Las Vegas businesses have brought in new neon works. City code requires neon or animated signs in the Fremont East Entertainment District and the designated scenic byway that is Las Vegas Boulevard.
Jennifer Cornthwaite, who created and operates Emergency Arts, a downtown multiuse creative space in an old medical building that was once a J.C. Penney, opted for a neon sign because, she says, it stays true to downtown and the preservation of the neighborhood’s history. The animated red cross on the building, accompanied by backlit letters, was made and installed by Casino Lighting & Sign.
Lynn Zook, a historian for Friends of Classic Las Vegas who grew up here in the ’60s, says it’s refreshing to see such efforts.
“LED is creative in its own way,” she says. “But it’s not as humanizing. Back in the day, designers created to catch your eye. It was beautiful to drive down the street back then … It’s all very overwhelming now because your eye doesn’t know where to look.”
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