Detroit Yellow Pages Sign

[jdayer]

I just re-read your post, are you suggesting the company who bought the building to spend government money received to refurbish the building to restore the sign? I can’t agree with that at all.

I like the sign, I liked the Vernors Gnome too and I was sad when that came down. I liked the stove at the State Fair grounds. Can't say I miss that broken down old sign at the Belle Isle Bridge though :-)

If you would like the government to fund a historical preservation of the sign maybe you can put a group together and lobby for a congressional ear mark.

If the new owners spend money that was supposed to refurbish the building on restoring a sign on the outside of the building that would bother me. Pay a few guys a bunch of money to replace rusted out supports just to let the big plastic sign eventually fall apart because of exposure to the elements. That would be a big waste of government money.

[Richard]

There would have been a series of events leading up to this point

The first one would be to find a suitable location then a cost break down of rehabilitating said building those figures would have been submitted to secure funding , personally I would find it hard to look at that building with a huge yellow sign on the face of it and not figure in some way or form on how it would be dealt with other then we can just stick it on ebay..So what was the plan?

As long as we are going down this road who ever signed off on those funds surly was well aware of this big yellow sign on the building and if the dealing with it was not in the breakdown there should have been a big red flag.

I understand the concept of hey I bought the building and I may do as I please with it but I also understand the concept of being a good neighbor and trying to do the right thing in the city that chose to help me in progressing.

Anybody that purchases a historic building with anything iconic or historic attached to it and does not think that historic procedures do not apply is either out of touch or trying to circumvent.

So we are back to who signed off on the funding without checking the leagle aspect. Historic is now involved because they are the stop gap between those who wish to circumvent the rules layed down by the taxpayers when everybody else fails to do their job.

[Richard]

I just re-read your post, are you suggesting the company who bought the building to spend government money received to refurbish the building to restore the sign? I can’t agree with that at all.

I like the sign, I liked the Vernors Gnome too and I was sad when that came down. I liked the stove at the State Fair grounds. Can't say I miss that broken down old sign at the Belle Isle Bridge though :-)

If you would like the government to fund a historical preservation of the sign maybe you can put a group together and lobby for a congressional ear mark.

If the new owners spend money that was supposed to refurbish the building on restoring a sign on the outside of the building that would bother me. Pay a few guys a bunch of money to replace rusted out supports just to let the big plastic sign eventually fall apart because of exposure to the elements. That would be a big waste of government money.

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.

[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.