Part of Tucson has been looking a little dim lately.
Some of the city's most iconic neon signs are in disrepair. The historic signs located at 49 W. Drachman St. near the edge of Pima Community College’s downtown campus appear to have numerous lights missing their notable glow due to broken or inoperable light tubes. Some signs are turned off entirely.
The sign for Magic Carpet Golf, the miniature golf course that stood for 40 years on East Speedway, now appears as “Mag Car Et” on one side. The Medina's Sporting Goods sign has thick chunks of blue paint peeling off behind the neon light tubing.
Others appear to be in more disrepair than others, such as the Tropicana Motor Hotel sign with visible broken tubing hanging from the lettering. Without a keen eye, you could completely miss the Tropicana and Frontier Motel signs as they stand almost lightless in the dark of night.
None of the neon lights are in operation on the Tropicana Motor Lodge sign in the Pima College Neon Art Walk.
The reason behind the disrepair isn’t electrical outages or lack of maintenance. Instead, it’s “most likely vandalism,” according to Mike Baker, the Director of Plant Operations & Maintenance for PCC, which oversees some of the signs along West Drachman Street.
“They get vandalized quite often,” Baker said. “We're actually currently working with a vendor to get them repaired, but it doesn't take long for them to get vandalized after we do the repairs.”
In the past, Baker has found rocks, trashcan lids and even frisbees left behind after the signs get vandalized.
Baker noticed significant issues last month when doing one of PCC’s monthly preventative maintenance checks on the neon signs. Unlike traditional light bulbs that Pima has on hand, neon light tubing isn’t something you can pull off a shelf, he said.
Since the beginning of June, PCC has been working with lighting company Fluoresco Services to get the neon signs repaired and glowing once again. PCC is currently awaiting a quote from Fluoresco’s subcontractor to get the process moving along, according to Baker.
Broken tubes hang from the Tropicana Motor Lodge sign, which also now has no working neon lights, one of the signs in the Pima College Neon Art Walk, 49 W. Drachman St., Tucson, Ariz., June 9, 2022.
While fixing neon signs is an expensive venture, the biggest constraint in repairing the neon signs along the portion of West Drachman Street dubbed the PCC Neon Art Walk isn’t only money. It's time.
On average, repairing a neon sign can take at least five to six weeks, according to Jude Cook, the owner of Cook & Company Sign Makers and the Ignite Sign Art Museum.
But despite PCC facing a lot of neon sign abuse from being in a “neighborhood that’s not well-monitored,” Cook said, the signs are worth keeping up with because “there's nothing else like neon out there, neon catches your eye better than anything.’”
Last year, the Tucson Police Department reported seven calls for service for vandalism in the area of West Drachman Street and North Stone Avenue, according to the City of Tucson’s public police records. This data doesn’t currently include 2022 statistics.
Although it’s most likely that the current neon sign damage occurred from a series of vandalism incidents, Baker said, there’s also a possibility it could have been from just one single incident.
With no set repair date yet, Baker hopes to get some of Tucson’s most iconic neon signs glowing again “as soon as possible” and plans to look into feasible options to help protect the signs, such as plexiglass barriers.
“We do our best to make sure that we keep on top of our signs and other things,” he said. “We want a welcoming facility for people to come into. We don't want things that look unmaintained, but it's hard to keep putting money into stuff that keeps getting vandalized. But we are committed to keeping it (maintenance) up to date.”
'It's really a collective effort from all of us'
Traffic passes by the mostly dark historic neon signs in the Pima College Neon Art Walk, 49 W. Drachman St., Tucson, Ariz., June 9, 2022.
The historic neon signs on West Drachman Street aren’t the only signs in need of attention.
Drive a few minutes west toward North Oracle Road and the Miracle Mile corridor and you’ll spot signs like the Sunland Motel completely off, with significant damage, and the Ghost Ranch Lodge & Restaurant sign with numerous burnt-out lights on both sides. PCC isn't in charge of these signs.
Vandalism isn’t the only possible cause of these local signs being in disrepair, according to Demion Clinco, the Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation CEO, who says that other factors could include storm damage, lack of maintenance, or the high costs of repairing the signs.
“A light might be off because they're switched off. They might be off because a light broke because there was a hailstorm. They could be off because there was, you know, an electrical outage or a component failed and they just didn't have the resources to fix it,” Clinco said. “So there's a host of reasons why a sign might be off. Sometimes it's as easy as going in and asking them to turn it on and sometimes it's a little more complicated.”
The Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation isn’t responsible for repairing the signs when problems arise. Instead, that responsibility falls on the business owners, Clinco said, but the foundation encourages community advocacy to help keep the signs looking their best.
“There's no silver bullet for protecting all of our signs. It's really a collective effort from all of us,” Clinco said. “Taking the time to photograph them or to actually support the businesses that have them. You know, when you have dinner at Caruso's, tell them how much you appreciate their neon sign. When you go into the Hotel Congress, tell them how much you appreciate them keeping that sign up and glowing. ... They need to hear from the public that people see these as something of value. And it takes all of us working together to support the businesses that have the signs to keep our urban core vibrant.”
Keep on glowing, Tucson
A historic neon sign for the The Arizonan Motel has only a few letters illuminated on the Pima College Neon Art Walk, June 9, 2022.
Restoring and repairing neon signs wasn’t always as accessible as it is now. Before the Tucson Sign Code ordinance was passed in June 2011, neon signs weren’t considered up to city code, meaning that if one had to be taken down for repairs, it couldn’t go back up.
The Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation worked with “the city and a group of community advocates and stakeholders” to help create the historic landmark sign ordinance, according to Clinco.
The work of the foundation, along with the newly implemented Sign Code, led to the their Neon Sign Project, centered around preserving the historic signs and mapping them out for the community. The foundation's work also led to the restoration and donation of four of the neon signs on the PCC Neon Art Walk.
Since the new ordinance was put into place, sign owners can now get repairs for their signs and make additions or changes to the signs to reflect the current business.
Despite the numerous local signs that have been restored over the years, restoring and preserving Tucson’s historic neon signs is a seemingly endless task.
Traffic cruises by the neon sign for the Tucson Inn, 143 W. Drachman St. in 2017. It opened in 1953. Tucson had nearly 150 hotels at that time. “The motor-hotel business in Tucson is one of the resort town’s thriving activities,” according to the Tucson Citizen.
One of Tucson’s most iconic signs, the Tucson Inn, is set to be fully restored by the end of the year, according to David Dore, the President of Campuses and Executive Vice Chancellor at PCC.
“I think it’s an embrace of the rich history of Tucson, and Pima, you know, wants to be really a part of preserving that history,” Dore said. “And we want to be a good neighbor, particularly in that neighborhood of the downtown campus.”
Fluoresco Services and Cook & Company Sign Makers are helping restore the Tucson Inn sign. The project, headed by PCC and the City of Tucson with help from the Tucson Historic Preservation Foundation, will cost an estimated $135,000 or more, according to Cook.
PCC received a $25,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the project, which PCC plans to “more than” match to help restore the Tucson Inn sign, Dore said.
PCC will be responsible for maintaining the Tucson Inn sign along with the other signs on the Neon Art Walk.
“When we started this (neon sign) project, most of the signs were off. I mean, there were a few scattered here and there that were on, like Hotel Congress has never turned off,” Clinco said. “But others across the city were just in terrible, terrible disrepair. And so, so many have been restored. It's amazing how they just become sort of these icons of our community. And then when they're suddenly off again, everybody's like, ‘Why are those off?’ You know, it's like, ‘Oh, where are they?’ It's easy to forget that they were barely recognizable years ago.”
