OK, we've talked about the age of the cars in the photo with the neon sign, and possibly solved the mystery of the 'sloped ironstone' on the back (south) side of the building. What else...
More on the neon sign...
Y'know? Originally I figured the neon sign was an artifact of the 1950s or 60s when neon was big, and any business worth its salt would have to include a neon sign on its building.
But...
- Looking at some of the Cogswell construction photos from 1968-69 on the
Halifax Municipal Archives site, I noticed the Morse's sign is still the painted version that had been there for many years!
The painted sign is also visible on this Municipal Archives shot of the fire next door from March 1968 (seems like back in the day, every building was on fire at one time or another):
Same with this shot from October 1967:
Another Cogswell progress shot from 1968:
So, the neon sign was installed in the 1970s? Hmmm...
We've established that
Stephen Archibald's pic was from 1977 (confirmed by the cars' year models)...
Well here's another Municipal Archives shot from sometime in the 1970s that shows the neon sign installed (light letters on a dark sign):
There's a shot on this
Chronicle Herald article of the neon sign from 1975:
So, Morse's got its neon sign a little later than others, sometime in the early 1970s. Anybody remember when it was removed?
Back to the original topic of this post... why the hell did they decide to paint over an iconic sign that had literally been there since the 1920s? We'll probably never know.
Threaded Mode