Los Angeles Neon Tours

Monday June 19, 2006

For everyone who has ever been curious about the Raymond Chandler/Dashiell Hammett side of Los Angeles, that city's Museum of Neon Art recently started offering neon sign tours of LA. Although the museum is worth a visit on its own, the bus tour is what caught our eye. On Saturday evenings in warm weather (until October 21), a chartered double-decker bus (!) drives around Los Angeles for three hours with a museum curator serving as tour guide. The itinerary includes neon-packed stretches of Sunset, Wilshire and Hollywood boulevards and Melrose Avenue, along with stops in Chinatown and at Jewish deli/hipster haven Canter's Deli. But what killed neon signs as an art for in Los Angeles? World War II. In 1942, Mayor Fletcher Bowron ordered Los Angeles' neon signs turned off for fear they could assist the Japanese in bombing Los Angeles - but after wars end, many of the signs remained dark nonetheless.

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