The Glory Days of Times Square
Artkraft Strauss made many of the famous mechanical, neon and incandescent signs that once lit up New York's Times Square. Now they've been supplanted by giant video screens, and Artkraft Strauss has auctioned off some of its classic work.
DEBBIE ELLIOTT, host:
And now to the big city, Manhattan. Last week a company called Artkraft Strauss auctioned off pieces of some of the most famous neon signs ever to light up Times Square. Those signs, called spectaculars, have mostly been replaced by giant video screens. For architect Hugh Hardy it's a big loss.
Mr. HUGH HARDY (Architect): Times Square is still with us in all its chaotic splendor, a continuing testament to consumer culture. It remains an illuminated playground for everyone. But how different it was when the fish of Wrigley's Spearmint Gum swam and bubbled across the sky, and Little Lulu pulled endless Kleenex from her pop-up box. Remember the Camel man who puffed his smoke rings across Broadway? Or the giant Bond waterfall bracketed by nude figures draped in neon? That waterfall could be heard above the roar of traffic. Times Square raised commercialism to an American artform.
In the 1980s I worked with a Municipal Art Society to keep the city from turning the place into a corporate park of bland office blocks. As part of our campaign we staged an exhibition featuring the original New Year's Eve light bulb ball, the most famous symbol of the Square. It too was designed by Artkraft Strauss. Once there were miles of glowing neon tubing painstakingly bent and filled with various gasses, sealed and energized by high voltage current.
Now uniform acres of light emitting diodes prevail. Instead of the sequenced blinking displays of incandescent light bulbs and mechanically moving parts, we have computer generated action on a flat screen. This uniform expanse of LED signage is kinetic and colorful, but sadly all of one piece. These programmable multi-colored screens display constantly moving images and each is different in content. But all use the same display technique.
New York likes change. It's a place bound up in what's new. But to maintain the frantic pace established institutions like the rattling trains of the Third Avenue L, the candied suites of Rumplemeyers, and the jazz clubs of 52nd Street have to disappear. Others may survive in an altered state, like the Plaza Hotel now being rebuilt as a residential condominium. Artkraft Strauss is only the latest to go. We cannot stop such progress but we should pause to acknowledge the brilliant contributions that Artkraft Strauss has made to New York's popular culture.
I suppose the handmade technology of neon tubes and incandescent light bulbs can't compete with the colorful glamour and flexibility of computer controlled LED signage or giant ink jet posters. But for seven decades Benjamin Strauss, who founded the company with Jacob Star in 1931, made the night sky over Seventh Avenue and Broadway come alive.
ELLIOTT: Hugh Hardy helped oversee the restoration of Radio City Music Hall and the construction of Windows on the World.
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