Not everyone will take the Museum of Neon Art's nighttime bus cruise around Los Angeles seriously--at first. But darned if it doesn't surprise the skeptics, offering not only another way to look at familiar sites but a fast and filling lesson in the culture, history and architecture of Chinatown, downtown, Beverly Hills and Hollywood.
Hippies at heart and art aficionados may think they're in their element, but those with yuppie tendencies are made to feel welcome too: mineral water and wine and cheese are served, and the Gray Line bus \o7 is\f7 quite comfortable. Even the name has upwardly mobile overtones: It's a bus \o7 cruise\f7 , not bus \o7 tour\f7 .
Even before arriving at the museum on Traction Avenue--not far from Union Station and City Hall--the outing reeks of adventure. After all, it is downtown \o7 after dark. \f7 But there's plenty of activity around the museum, people milling around outside, some taking in the exhibits inside.
The tour departs about 7:30 p.m. First stop: Chinatown.
Along the way, tour guide Betty Vick gives her charges tidbits about how neon works, how economical it is to use (it burns 50 to 75 years) and shows examples of how it's used to create some impressive, attention-grabbing signs.
In the Chinatown mall on Broadway, Vick points out the neon outlining the inverted peaks of Hop Louie's restaurant, formerly the Golden Pagoda, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Other signs of note are the Buddha and the "Sincere Gifts" sign, which Vick says was installed in the 1940s "and has been glowing ever since."
The first neon sign in Los Angeles stopped traffic at the Packard dealership at La Brea and Wilshire in 1929. What more in advertising could the owner ask for?
By the '30s and '40s--a period Vick calls "the movie days of neon"--theater marquees were ablaze with ornate neon signs. L.A.'s first movie district was on Broadway, where premieres included Charlie Chaplin's "City Lights" and Al Jolson's "The Jazz Singer."
As the bus rolls along the street, long ago abandoned for "Hollywood," many of the marquees are dark but bear familiar names: Palace, Roxie, Cameo, Pantages, Rialto. The neon is long gone from Sid Grauman's Million Dollar Theatre, opened in 1917 as the first theater built for movies. One neon sign that still flickers brightly on Broadway belongs to the Orpheum. The sign now advertises "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II" in Spanish.
