Back in the early 90s, it was common to hear in Hong Kong that travelers either loved it or hated it. I never understood the hating part. Hong Kong was still pretty much at its peak with Kai Tak Airport, old double-decker buses, and neon. Neon was everywhere and one of the most iconic places for these signs was Nathan Road in Tsim Sha Tsui. What’s not to love?
To the far left of this photo is a sign for the Kowloon Hotel. My husband and I stayed there five years ago on my first return to Hong Kong after leaving in 1998. There was still some neon in 2012, but not as much as in the 90s when the photo above was taken.
But I was startled when I was there last month. I’m standing about half a block behind where I stood when I took the 90s photo.
The neon is gone, as are most of the signs.
Back in the 40s and 50s my dad and uncle had a neon sign shop on Orangegrove Avenue in Hollywood CA and built many of the huge neon signs along Hollywood Boulevard. Sometimes when I was on furlough from St John’s Military Academy in LA and they worked on a Saturday, I went along in the huge rumbling crane truck and watched from the sidewalk while some gaudy sign, neon tubing attached to a sheet metal shape, was lifted up and bolted to a building, a restaurant or a theater. Back in the shop, I would sometimes be allowed to help shape the sheet metal on big presses and heat and bend the glass tubing (the latter never very successfully; my glass scrap pile was high). Later when cheaper plastics replaced neon, business dwindled and then died. The shop on Orangegrove has been a parking lot for years now.
That’s very cool! I would have loved to have had a chance to shape neon tubing!