Detroit Yellow Pages Sign

[Huggybear]

Here are four very hard facts:

1. NSO [[Neighborhood Services Organizations) owns the building and is turning it into a shelter for formerly homeless people [[transitional housing).

2. The Yellow Pages sign blocks the windows of what are supposed to become residential units.

3. No accrediting organization [[for designations, credits, etc.) made preservation of the sign [[on or off the building) a condition of funding.

4. Even when asked, no museum wanted it [[no doubt due to the fact that reconstructing it would cost hundreds of thousands of dollars - to say nothing of teardown and transport).

Combine these with NSO's fiduciary obligation to support its mission [[helping people - not restoring buildings) and the fact that a lot of people see that sign as a blatant defacement to a nice-looking Art Deco tower, and it should not suprise you nor come off as a moral outrage that it is coming down. This is not conceptually different from ripping the "modernized" facades and retail signs off Merchants' Row.

I do get a chuckle out of your various suggestions that this somehow is against the will or interests of taxpayers [[or will somehow be remedied by increased local input under the new charter - for as short a time as that may be effective). Put it to some taxpayers whether they want any of their money spent preserving a commercial sign for a business that cut and ran for the suburbs, leaving a huge empty building in a troubled neighborhood.

If AT&T wants to preserve its own sign, it can step up to the plate.

HB

Actually taxpayer monies are spent on things like this all of the time in the form of neighborhood stabilization block grants,Renaissance zone credits,historic credits etc.etc
one look at all of the neighborhood destruction around and it is hard to fathom how many millions were stolen through the years.

As a solution maybe if it is not in danger of falling off of the building next year after the charter kicks in and the neighborhood gets actual representation and others within the city decide to actually do thier jobs then there would most likely be funding to preserve the sign.

I would say taxpayers have already paid millions to restore the sign but the work just never got done.

[animatedmartian]

Not sure if there's a thread that's any newer than this one but, it's started to come down today.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?...0377290&type=1

[riviera]

That's really sad. Still I was wondering how the building would look without it.

Maybe they will cut it into little pieces and sell it off as memorabilia like they did with the old Hollywood sign... or sell it for scrap which is more likely.

[animatedmartian]

That's really sad. Still I was wondering how the building would look without it.Maybe they will cut it into little pieces and sell it off as memorabilia like they did with the old Hollywood sign... or sell it for scrap which is more likely.

From what I think I read somewhere was that the phone will be kept on a plaque near the building, but the rest of the sign will be scrapped.


Or read this link...

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/in..._yellow_p.html

[RaumVogel]

Damn it. Now I hate A.T.&T. more than ever.
They should have paid to restore it.