6.25.2007
DIXIE NEON
Friday morning I interviewed Ernest Langner, a 92-year-old man who built most of the neon signs in Birmingham, Alabama. His first job, he told me, was replacing the light bulbs outside the famous Alabama Theater on 3rd Avenue. That was 1934. A few years later, he helped start the company Dixie Neon. Clients included drive-ins, donut shops, bar-b-que joints, motels, bakeries, hardware stores, car lots, coffee companies, pancake houses, jewelers, and this one place called the Shoe Tree. The Shoe Tree's neon sign had a palm tree curving up and around the name of the store. It sat on the same block as City Federal, a 27-story building in downtown Birmingham built in 1913. In 1941, or thereabouts, Langner and his Dixie Neon crew erected one of the more well-seen sights of the city, the six foot tall red neonlit letters CITY FEDERAL, channeled lettering made from porcelin enamel and neon tubing, and glowing on all four sides of the southern skyscraper's upper rim.
Above, Langner's crew on the City Federal roof.
Langner and I sat in his unfinished basement for a couple hours. One half of the cinderblock space had tools neatly arranged on the wall and ballcaps pinned in a square like checkerboard pieces. Langer's grey metal desk sat in a the opposite corner, four old radios and several walkie-talkie looking things cluttering the surface. I sat and looked at his two thick scrapbooks of colored photographs taken by the signmaker of work done around the city. There was a fish diner called King's Catfish King, where the sign stated "No Alcoholic Beverages Allowed." The sign had a big blue catfish wearing a golden crown. The fish shot upwards like he'd seen a ghost on the bottom of a pond.
Langner showed me the Thunderbird Drive-In, Roebuck Lanes, the Holiday Inn on Bessemer Super Highway, Kiddieland Fun Park, The Camera Shop, the Carraway blue star, Teddy Bear Foods, and the Dixie Pig. He talked about fixing up the Vulcan's torch, back when it turned red or green depending on traffic deaths that day. He tried explaining how the "cross fire" and "ribbon burner" heated up the ruby red or yellow glass tubes, four feet long, and bent them to form figure eights or half-moons. He mentioned asbestos in one step and dug around in a pile of stuff to find a piece of the poisonous stuff.
Just before I left, Langner opened a plastic drawer marked "1940 & UP" on masking tape. Black and white 3 by 5 photographs filled the small drawer. All the shots, taken by the signmaker, showed the earliest of Dixie Neon jobs. The flatbed truck, Rosatos, the filling station attendants in white caps and aprons, the Coca-Cola corner. One showed his boy Gene, now a preacher in Phenix City, hanging from a lift. Another showed Chicken In The Rough, a 50 cent lunch spot in Homewood, before the bungalows covered the hills and young mothers with strollers covered the sidewalks all hours of daylight.
A story will appear about the old signs of Birmingham in an upcoming PORTICO.
Friday morning I interviewed Ernest Langner, a 92-year-old man who built most of the neon signs in Birmingham, Alabama. His first job, he told me, was replacing the light bulbs outside the famous Alabama Theater on 3rd Avenue. That was 1934. A few years later, he helped start the company Dixie Neon. Clients included drive-ins, donut shops, bar-b-que joints, motels, bakeries, hardware stores, car lots, coffee companies, pancake houses, jewelers, and this one place called the Shoe Tree. The Shoe Tree's neon sign had a palm tree curving up and around the name of the store. It sat on the same block as City Federal, a 27-story building in downtown Birmingham built in 1913. In 1941, or thereabouts, Langner and his Dixie Neon crew erected one of the more well-seen sights of the city, the six foot tall red neonlit letters CITY FEDERAL, channeled lettering made from porcelin enamel and neon tubing, and glowing on all four sides of the southern skyscraper's upper rim.
Above, Langner's crew on the City Federal roof.
Langner and I sat in his unfinished basement for a couple hours. One half of the cinderblock space had tools neatly arranged on the wall and ballcaps pinned in a square like checkerboard pieces. Langer's grey metal desk sat in a the opposite corner, four old radios and several walkie-talkie looking things cluttering the surface. I sat and looked at his two thick scrapbooks of colored photographs taken by the signmaker of work done around the city. There was a fish diner called King's Catfish King, where the sign stated "No Alcoholic Beverages Allowed." The sign had a big blue catfish wearing a golden crown. The fish shot upwards like he'd seen a ghost on the bottom of a pond.
Langner showed me the Thunderbird Drive-In, Roebuck Lanes, the Holiday Inn on Bessemer Super Highway, Kiddieland Fun Park, The Camera Shop, the Carraway blue star, Teddy Bear Foods, and the Dixie Pig. He talked about fixing up the Vulcan's torch, back when it turned red or green depending on traffic deaths that day. He tried explaining how the "cross fire" and "ribbon burner" heated up the ruby red or yellow glass tubes, four feet long, and bent them to form figure eights or half-moons. He mentioned asbestos in one step and dug around in a pile of stuff to find a piece of the poisonous stuff.
Just before I left, Langner opened a plastic drawer marked "1940 & UP" on masking tape. Black and white 3 by 5 photographs filled the small drawer. All the shots, taken by the signmaker, showed the earliest of Dixie Neon jobs. The flatbed truck, Rosatos, the filling station attendants in white caps and aprons, the Coca-Cola corner. One showed his boy Gene, now a preacher in Phenix City, hanging from a lift. Another showed Chicken In The Rough, a 50 cent lunch spot in Homewood, before the bungalows covered the hills and young mothers with strollers covered the sidewalks all hours of daylight.
A story will appear about the old signs of Birmingham in an upcoming PORTICO.
posted by TB at 08:05
