"The Sign is to Remain in Place"
When I got my first digital camera one of my personal goals was to record some old, some new, signs of San Jose. Along with mine, a good number of old San Jose neon signs appear on flickr. So, when I noticed the crew working to demolish the Stephen’s Meat Products site at Montgomery St. and San Fernando St. my first thought was, “No, the sign, the sign!”
Doing some research I found that after the demolition of the building the City plans to put in its place a 139 stall surface parking lot. One good thing is that the “dancing pig sign” will stay. Actually the Stephen’s Meat “dancing pig sign” will stay only as long as the parking lot does. Then it might be off to the ‘old sign warehouse’ with all the other unwanted cool old signs.
The City of San Jose in its attempt to keep our downtown from suffering visual clutter has determined that only signage that conforms to the Sign Code are permitted. That translates to boring. Can The City imagine our town with big beautiful neon signs on The Tech and The Fairmont? Wow, how about a neon Duck on the Children’s Discovery Museum?
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I noticed that the building was torn down on our way home from the Stealth game.
I think when there was talk of putting a ballpark in that area there was some mention of moving the sign there and putting it near a sausage stand.
Beats hiding it away, I guess.
I wish we had gotten the ballpark. Just another bad move by the city. We have to be happy for any little gift they give. Even if it is just a dancing pig sign!
I got some pix of it on the day they were demolishing the buildings back in November:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevinmarks/tags/sausage
Kevin we say, "Thanks for the pics."