Neon lights are slowly going out
In 1963, a band called “The Drifters” released a song called “On Broadway.”
The first line is, “They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway.” That song was originally released on an LP—a record. And just as vinyl records have faded in popularity, so too have the neon lights the Drifters sang about. The lights you see around Broadway today are much more likely to be LED than neon.
Neon signs are part of the visual identity of some of the world’s great cities. They’re synonymous with urban nightlife, entertainment, and commerce. They started to appear in the early Twentieth Century—a century in which cities modernized and living standards rose.
Neon signs adorn the casinos of Las Vegas, the Broadway theaters in New York, Piccadilly Circus in London, the shops of Nathan Road in Hong Kong, and the Moulin Rouge cabaret in Paris.
But little by little, the owners of neon signs are replacing them with cheaper LED lights. One historian estimates that between 1923 and 1956, New York City issued permits for 75,000 outdoor neon signs. Only about 130 are left today.
Just this year, New York lost two of its most famous neon signs. Owners of the Apollo Theater in Harlem and Rockefeller Center in Midtown Manhattan have gotten approval to replace their neon signs from 1934 and 1935, respectively. If you’ve ever watched the comedy show Saturday Night Live, you’ve seen the neon sign that says “NBC Studios” at the entrance to Rockefeller Center.
Why are building owners removing their neon signs? Two words: cost and complexity.
A neon sign is made of glass tubes, bent and shaped to form letters or drawings. The tubes are filled with inert gases, either neon or argon. Electrodes—small pieces of metal—are attached to the ends of the tubes. When the sign is turned on, electricity flows through the tubes. The electricity activates the atoms in the gas, producing light.
Pure neon produces a red-orange glow. But by mixing different gases and coatings on the tubes, designers can produce different colors. The most popular are blue, violet, green, white, yellow, and pink.
As you can imagine, a neon sign needs maintenance. Tubes can crack or break; if that happens, they need to be replaced. The light dims over time as the gas leaks out, so the neon needs to be recharged periodically. Wiring and connections can corrode or fail. When it does come time to make repairs, building owners don’t have many options. Repairing neon glass tubes is a dying art; it can be hard to find a skilled person to repair a vintage sign.
By contrast, LED signs have many advantages. They are cheaper to make and cheaper to operate. LED bulbs last five to ten times longer than neon tubes and they require less energy to run. There’s a much greater color range and they can be used much more flexibly. Since LED lights are cheap, owners can afford to change the words or designs much more frequently. Disposing of LED lights is simpler, too: there are no hazardous chemicals to worry about.
LEDs can be made to look like neon signs. The lettering in the new NBC Studios sign is formed into tubes just like the lettering in the old neon sign. From a distance, and in photos, they look similar.
But they are not the same. Neon signs produce a warm, glowing light with slight variations within their glass tubes. This is because the gas inside emits light in soft gradients. LED signs can mimic neon, but they produce a brighter and more uniform shine. Neon signs have handcrafted imperfections that make them feel retro and unique.
Preservationists and historians mourn the loss of neon. The glow of neon represents a time when cities had a distinct, handcrafted charm—a contrast to the mass-produced displays that we see everywhere today. Losing neon signs means losing not only their warm light but also a link to the time in which they first appeared.
In the U.S., owners are required to preserve façades and structural elements of landmark buildings, even if they modernize certain other parts of the building. Preservationists argue that owners should be required to preserve their neon signs just like they are required to preserve other elements of historical significance. But so far, neon signs have not been given the same protected status as other parts of the building. So in the end, it’s up to building owners.
And building owners are business owners. They have a bottom line to think about. And many have made the business decision to switch to LED to save money and simplify their maintenance.
Many, but not all. Some building owners have decided to keep their neon, even to invest in it. Around the corner from NBC Studios is, perhaps, the most famous example of neon signage in all of New York: the Radio City Music Hall. The owners of that building recently replaced all the neon tubing in that famous sign—all 10,000 feet of it. Huge red and yellow letters, ten stories high, spell out “Radio City Music Hall.” You can see it for many blocks up and down Sixth Avenue. Those closer up can admire the street-level sign that wraps around the corner of the building at 50th Street and Sixth Avenue.
Jeff’s take
I read one person say that neon is like listening to music on a record, but LED is like listening to streaming. Just like you would never invent vinyl records today, you would never invent neon signs today: blowing and curving glass, filling it with gas, turning on the electricity, and doing all that maintenance. But it’s a part of history and if we don’t preserve it, then we’ll never have it again.
So if you go to New York, look at the Radio City sign, and then look across 50th Street at the new NBC Studios sign and tell me if you can notice a difference.
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