 | |
  Location within Ohio | |
| Established | 1999 |
|---|---|
| Location | 1330 Monmouth Street Cincinnati, Ohio |
| Coordinates | 39°08′37″N84°32′24″W / 39.1435°N 84.5399°W |
| Type | Collection museum |
| Website | www |
The American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio, preserves, archives, and displays a collection of signs. The museum also displays the equipment utilized in the design and manufacture of signs. [1] Tod Swormstedt began working on the museum in 1999. It opened to the public in 2005. [2]
Swormstedt's family owns the signage industry trade journal Signs of the Times, which has been published since 1906. [3] Swormstedt's grandfather, H.C. Menefee, was the first editor of the publication, and purchased it for himself in 1911. [4] Swormstedt had been working at the journal for over twenty years before becoming inspired to start a sign museum in 1999. [2] His family provided $1 million for the project, and figures from the signage industry gave donations of their own. The museum was founded as a nonprofit corporation. [3] Swormstedt considered building the museum in Los Angeles, St. Louis, Memphis, and other sites, but eventually settled on Cincinnati, the base of operations for Signs of the Times. [4]
Over 200 signs and other objects are on display at the museum, [2] and over 3,800 items are cataloged. [5] The collection ranges from the late nineteenth century to the 1970s. Highlights of the collection include samples of gold leaf lettering on glass, a Sputnik-like plastic orb from an Anaheim shopping center, a rotating neon windmill from a Denver donut shop, [2] Las Vegas showcards, and a fiberglass Frisch's Big Boy statue with a slingshot in his pocket. (The slingshot was omitted from later models of the Big Boy statue.) One can also find signs from businesses such as Big Bear Stores, Howard Johnson's, and Earl Scheib. [4] Over the museum's entrance, visitors are greeted by a 20-foot-tall (6.1 m) fiberglass genie from a Los Angeles carpet company. [2]
In 2008, the museum acquired a single-arch 1963 McDonald's sign from Huntsville, Alabama. The sign features McDonald's Speedee character, who was phased out in favor of Ronald McDonald in the 1960s. [6] In 2009, the museum added a neon sign from Johnny’s Big Red Grill, once a popular restaurant among Cornell University students. [7]
Many signs owned by the museum were too large to fit the original exhibit space. [2] To better accommodate the collection, the museum began purchasing a 42,000-square-foot (3,900 m2) property in Camp Washington, Cincinnati, in 2007. [8] The new location is part of the Oesterlein Machine Company-Fashion Frocks, Inc. Complex, a National Register of Historic Places building. [9] The museum opened in its new home in June 2012, [8] and the building displays about 500 signs and artifacts, [10] many of which are on a faux streetscape in a town called "Signville". [5]
Neonworks of Cincinnati moved its business into the museum's new location and features a live exhibit showing visitors how they restore neon signs. [5]
Ohio is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The state's capital and largest city is Columbus, with the Columbus metro area, Greater Cincinnati, and Greater Cleveland being the largest metropolitan areas. Ohio is bordered by Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the west, and Michigan to the northwest. Ohio is historically known as the "Buckeye State" after its Ohio buckeye trees, and Ohioans are also known as "Buckeyes". Its state flag is the only non-rectangular flag of all the U.S. states.
Huntsville is a city in and the county seat of Walker County, Texas. The population was 45,941 as of the 2020 census. It is the center of the Huntsville micropolitan area. Huntsville is in the East Texas Piney Woods on Interstate 45 and home to Texas State Prison, Sam Houston State University, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Huntsville State Park, and HEARTS Veterans Museum of Texas.
Piccadilly Circus is a road junction and public space of London's West End in the City of Westminster. It was built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with Piccadilly. In this context, a circus, from the Latin word meaning "circle", is a round open space at a street junction.
In the signage industry, neon signs are electric signs lighted by long luminous gas-discharge tubes that contain rarefied neon or other gases. They are the most common use for neon lighting, which was first demonstrated in a modern form in December 1910 by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show. While they are used worldwide, neon signs were popular in the United States from about the 1920s to 1950s. The installations in Times Square, many originally designed by Douglas Leigh, were famed, and there were nearly 2,000 small shops producing neon signs by 1940. In addition to signage, neon lighting is used frequently by artists and architects, and in plasma display panels and televisions. The signage industry has declined in the past several decades, and cities are now concerned with preserving and restoring their antique neon signs.
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits.
Paycor Stadium, previously known as Paul Brown Stadium, is an outdoor football stadium in Cincinnati, Ohio. It is the home venue of the Cincinnati Bengals of the National Football League and opened on August 19, 2000. Originally named after the Bengals' founder, Paul Brown, the stadium is located on approximately 22 acres (8.9 ha) of land and has a listed seating capacity of 65,515. The stadium is nicknamed "The Jungle", an allusion to not only the namesake Bengal tiger's natural habitat—hinted at with green-colored seats throughout—but also the Guns N' Roses song "Welcome to the Jungle", which is the team's unofficial anthem.
Bridgestone Arena is a multi-purpose venue in downtown Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Completed in 1996, it is the home of the Nashville Predators of the National Hockey League.
John Richard Kasich Jr. is an American politician, author, and television news host. A member of the Republican Party, he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1983 to 2001 and as the 69th governor of Ohio from 2011 to 2019. Kasich unsuccessfully sought his party's presidential nomination in 2000 and 2016.
The U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama is a museum operated by the government of Alabama, showcasing rockets, achievements, and artifacts of the U.S. space program. Sometimes billed as "Earth's largest space museum", astronaut Owen Garriott described the place as, "a great way to learn about space in a town that has embraced the space program from the very beginning."
Cinergy Corp. was an energy company based in Cincinnati, Ohio, United States, from 1994 to 2006. Its name is a play on the words "synergy", "energy", and "Cincinnati".
Neon lighting consists of brightly glowing, electrified glass tubes or bulbs that contain rarefied neon or other gases. Neon lights are a type of cold cathode gas-discharge light. A neon tube is a sealed glass tube with a metal electrode at each end, filled with one of a number of gases at low pressure. A high potential of several thousand volts applied to the electrodes ionizes the gas in the tube, causing it to emit colored light. The color of the light depends on the gas in the tube. Neon lights were named for neon, a noble gas which gives off a popular orange light, but other gases and chemicals are used to produce other colors, such as hydrogen (red), helium (yellow), carbon dioxide (white), and mercury (blue). Neon tubes can be fabricated in curving artistic shapes, to form letters or pictures. They are mainly used to make dramatic, multicolored glowing signage for advertising, called neon signs, which were popular from the 1920s to 1960s and again in the 1980s.
Carol Tyler is an American painter, educator, comedian, and eleven-time Eisner Award-nominated cartoonist known for her autobiographical comics. She has received multiple honors for her work including the Cartoonist Studio Prize, the Ohio Arts Council Excellence Award, and was declared a Master Cartoonist at the 2016 Cartoon Crossroads Columbus Festival at the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.
Donald Denver Fleming was an American college and professional football player who was a defensive back in the National Football League (NFL) for three seasons during the early 1960s. Fleming played college football for the University of Florida, and thereafter, he played professionally for the Cleveland Browns of the NFL. His professional football career was cut short by his accidental death by electrocution in 1963.
The Neon Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada, United States, features signs from old casinos and other businesses displayed outdoors on 2.62 acres. The museum features a restored lobby shell from the defunct La Concha Motel as its visitors' center, which officially opened on October 27, 2012.
Signage is the design or use of signs and symbols to communicate a message. A signage also means signs collectively or being considered as a group. The term signage is documented to have been popularized in 1975 to 1980.
Bens De Luxe Delicatessen and Restaurant was a renowned delicatessen in Montreal, Canada. The restaurant was famed for its Montreal-style smoked meat sandwich. During its heyday it was a popular late-night dining fixture in the downtown core and a favourite eatery of many celebrities. It was open for nearly a century, from 1908 to 2006. At 98 years it was the oldest deli in the city.
The Liberace Museum Collection is a private museum collection that includes many stage costumes, cars, jewelry, lavishly decorated pianos and numerous citations for philanthropic acts that belonged to the American entertainer and pianist Wladziu Valentino Liberace, better known as Liberace.
The economy of Ohio nominally would be the 21st largest global economy behind Saudi Arabia and ahead of Argentina according to the 2017 International Monetary Fund GDP estimates. The state had a GDP of $656.19 billion in 3rd quarter of 2017, up from $517.1 billion in 2012, and up from $501.3 billion in 2011, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In 2013, Ohio was ranked in the top ten states for best business climate by Site Selection magazine, based on a business-activity database. The state was edged out only by Texas and Nebraska for the 2013 Governor's Cup award from the magazine, based on business growth and economic development.
The Kern County Museum is a history museum located in Bakersfield, California. Its main focus is the history of Kern County. Pioneer Village, located on 16 acres (65,000 m2), contains over 50 original buildings from around the county, related to life in the late 19th century. Other features include: Lori Brock Children's Discovery Center, Black Gold exhibit, and Neon Plaza. The museum is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.
Kona Lanes was a bowling center in Costa Mesa, California, that opened in 1958 and closed in 2003 after 45 years in business. Known for its futuristic design, it featured 40 wood-floor bowling lanes, a game room, a lounge, and a coffee shop that eventually became a Mexican diner. Built during the advent of Googie architecture, its Polynesian-inspired Tiki styling extended from the large roadside sign to the building's neon lights and exaggerated rooflines.