This article is part of FT Globetrotter’s guide to New York
Picture the scene: it’s a rainy night in New York City. You see the word “BAR” in blue neon above a mysterious door, the luminescence reflected on the wet pavement. If you are anything like me, you will feel compelled to step inside and order a drink right away — there is something so intoxicating about the neon signs that light up New York City on dark winter nights, radiating with romantic associations.
But contrary to what you might imagine, there is only a fraction as much neon on the streets of New York as there was during its mid-century heyday. Neon lighting — in which an electrical current is passed through neon gas in a sealed glass tube — was invented in Paris in 1910 but really took off in New York in the 1930s, and became an emblem of the postwar commercial boom in the US in the 1950s. Back then, there were thousands of neon signs in the city, most famously in Times Square, which pulsated with adverts for Camel, Chevrolet and Pepsi-Cola (now replaced by adverts on giant digital screens).
Neon started to be used as a visual metaphor in cinema, particularly film noir, often as shorthand for urban isolation. Its associations have often veered towards the gritty and sleazy, to peep shows and terrifying motels, such as in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. New York’s neon has also starred: Radio City Music Hall’s iconic signage has appeared in movies from The Godfather to Rosemary’s Baby, while a cacophony of neon signs reflected Travis Bickle’s inner turmoil in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver.
Since then, in a city defined by a hunger for change, the vast majority of mid-century signs have been lost to the ravages of time (neon expert Thomas E Rinaldi collects a mournful annual “Lights Out” list of signs that have gone dark here). Shops are developed into apartments and signage is lost, while new stores prefer LED lights, which are cheaper to install and repair. That said, there are places where you can still admire the city’s neon heritage.
Some of the original signs are still going strong thanks to loving restoration projects, from the unmissable Radio City Music Hall, lit up in red and blue Art Deco splendour, to the landmark red-neon Essex House hotel, visible from Central Park. Lower Manhattan, in particular, is dotted with original signs, from Houston Street institution Russ & Daughters, which still has its gorgeous green and red 1950s sign featuring two swimming fish, to Gringer GE Appliances, well known for its 1953 sky-blue GE logos, to Greenwich Village’s huge CO Bigelow chemist sign — the word DRUGS in huge letters in red, with a blue-green arrow pointing to the door — dating from 1930. If you really want to feel as though you have stepped inside a movie, go further afield to Brooklyn’s Coney Island, where neon signs advertise vintage rides and the glorious cartoon hot dog and cursive signage of Nathan’s Famous remind you the diner has been serving fast food since 1916.
More recent institutions harnessed the allure of neon too, from The Odeon restaurant, which defined the scene of 1980s downtown New York (Tom Wolfe and Andy Warhol were regulars, and it featured heavily in Jay McInerney’s 1984 novel Bright Lights Big City), and KGB Bar, which opened in 1993 — taking its name from the building’s former life as a social club for communists and socialists from the 1940s to the 1980s — to the vintage cinema-inspired white neon on The Roxy Hotel, lit in 2000.
Much of the restoration of the most recognisable signs has been done by Manhattan institution Let There Be Neon. With its display of neon rainbows and flowers in the windows, the Tribeca studio is beautiful to stroll past. Inside, neon art (including pieces by Tracey Emin, one of its clients) is displayed alongside incredible vintage clocks and signs. (It is officially closed to the public but owner Jeff Friedman does let a few polite people inside, if they are lucky enough to come at a good time and show genuine interest.)
On my visit, there are strips of inert neon on the table in the workshop, set to be installed as part of a refurbishment of the glowing bars of Radio City Music Hall. Friedman, a true neon aficionado who has worked there on and off since 1977 (he became its sole owner in 1991), tells me that each city has its own neon personality. New York City “tends to be dark blues, reds, some greens and yellows in my eyes. It just doesn’t scream the way other cities might”. Miami, for example, is brighter, all “pinks and turquoise”, while Las Vegas “screams and flashes bright whites and reds”.
Friedman believes that neon will always endure, partly because the alternatives — there are many LED imitations out there — can’t create the handmade glow (the glass tubing is heated then bent by hand into attractive and sometimes complex shapes in the studio). Or as he puts it: “LED has no soul. It’s like one who is content to eat fast food as opposed to a wonderful hand-cooked dish.” In part this is because so many people truly care about these signs. He recalls working on the “monumental” 12-foot green and red harp that has hung above the Upper West Side bar Dublin House since Prohibition ended in 1933. The sign was in such disrepair that it would have cost the owner more to refurbish it than he could earn back selling Guinness in a very long time. So the team at Let There Be Neon helped set up a crowdfunder, and the $15,000 quote was raised within 24 hours.
Some of the oldest, best bars in the city also have the oldest, best signs. Old Town Bar and Restaurant in Flatiron, for example — another sign restored by Freeman’s team — has one that dates back to the end of Prohibition, though the premises have been in operation since 1892. It has hung on to as many original fixtures as possible, from its atmospheric, saloon-like wood-lined booths to 1910 urinals in the men’s bathrooms. Manager and co-owner Gerard Meagher, whose family have owned the bar since the late 1970s, says customers love the zingy green and red sign. “It’s part of our identity,” he says. “It really suits our historic nature.”
At the Long Island Bar, a short walk from the spectacular views from the promenade at Brooklyn Heights, the huge red and green sign has been a cherished local landmark for more than 60 years. Restoring it wasn’t exactly a pain-free process, says Toby Cecchini, co-owner of the bar since 2013 (and who, as a former bartender at The Odeon, invented the Cosmopolitan cocktail). Its restoration ended up costing about $17,000, and its vast dimensions caused all manner of permit drama with the local council.
Locals became concerned when they took the sign down to fix it. “There was a hue and cry in the neighbourhood. People saying, ‘I just knew it!’”, assuming it would disappear forever,” Cecchini says. The day it went back up, so many people wanted to see it that they “were queueing up on the sidewalk”.
The bar itself is original 1950s, with Formica on the walls, old booths and woodwork. People love it, he says, “because you can’t fake this kind of thing — it’s clearly not Disney”. The all-important signage hints at what lies inside. People care about neon, says Cecchini, because it is a craft, “an urbane, atmospheric thing. That particular lambency is just so tied to America, and specifically to New York and all of the stories of the city.”
What are your favourite neon signs in New York? Tell us in the comments below. And follow FT Globetrotter on Instagram at @FTGlobetrotter
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