Chris Helms
Workers take down the iconic Blanchards Liquors sign on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2014.
Chris Helms
Workers take down the iconic Blanchards Liquors sign on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2014.
Chris Helms
Workers take down the iconic Blanchards Liquors sign on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2014.
Chris Helms
Workers take down the iconic Blanchards Liquors sign on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2014.
Chris Helms
A worker cuts apart the scaffolding that held up the iconic Blanchards sign. Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2014.
Chris Helms
Workers take down the iconic Blanchards Liquors sign on Wednesday, Dec. 17, 2014.
Workers took down the iconic Blanchards neon sign on Wednesday. A new sign with a similar design is scheduled to be installed on Thursday.
The neon sign has been in place since the 1960s, said Mike Denson, general manager of Blanchards Wine & Spirits' 741 Centre St. location.
While the sign has become an indelible symbol of Centre/South, at any given time letters wouldn't come on. Denson said the company had spent thousands in repairs over the years to no avail.
"I'm excited to see a sign that works," Denson said.
Barlo Signs of Hudson, N.H. did the work of removing the sign.
But what will happen to the old sign? Both Denson and a worker for Barlo Signs said it will likely be scrapped. Resident Steve Garfield wondered on Facebook if the sign might not find a home at the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati.
Denson said the old sign suffered from snow and rain and that parts of the neon kept going out. There was a two-year city process to get approval for a new sign, he said. The new one will look like the old one except it will no longer have an arrow pointing to the Blanchards parking lot.