A plaque remaining from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem.

Above, a 1934 plaque from the Big Apple Night Club at West 135th Street and Seventh Avenue in Harlem. Discarded as trash in 2006. Now a Popeyes fast food restaurant on Google Maps.

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“Shout out to ATM fees for making me buy my own money” (3/27)
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Entry from July 16, 2008
City With the Neon Skyline (Weslaco nickname)

The city of Weslaco added neon lighting to its business district in 1936-1937. For a brief time, Weslaco was called the “City With the Neon Skyline.” The lights were intended to highlight Weslaco’s new Spanish stucco architecture that had been added to facades at that time; another city nickname was “The City That Lifted Its Face.”
 
The neon lights attracted bugs and the lighting was not used by the 1940s and the start of World War II.
 
   
Wikipedia: Weslaco, Texas
Weslaco is a city in Hidalgo County, Texas, United States. The population was 26,935 at the 2000 census. Weslaco derives its name from the W.E. Stewart Land Company. It was the hometown of Harlon Block, one of the Marines photographed raising the flag at Iwo Jima.
 
Weslaco is part of the McAllen–Edinburg–Mission Metropolitan Statistical Area.
 
Handbook of Texas Online
WESLACO, TEXAS. Weslaco, about fifteen miles west of Harlingen in south central Hidalgo County, is on U.S. Highway 83 and Farm Road 88. The site was part of the Llano Grande grant to Juan José Ynojosa de Ballí (1790). Upon Ynojosa’s death the grant was divided among his children, and Manuela and María received the land on which Weslaco is situated. The Ballí family ranched and maintained ownership until 1852. In 1904 the Hidalgo and San Miguel extension of the St. Louis, Brownsville and Mexico Railway reached the site, promoted by Uriah Lott, Lon C. Hill, Jr. and others interested in developing the area through farming as opposed to traditional Hispanic ranching.
(...)
Construction of a railroad depot in 1927 attracted canning plants, dehydrating plants, and a box factory to Weslaco. A ground-level water reservoir was constructed in 1928. The first Weslaco “Birthday Party” was held in December 1929 and included a parade and style show. By 1930 the town’s population had reached 5,300. In 1936 civic plans required all buildings in the business section to be remodeled with Spanish colonial architecture. Weslaco then acquired the nickname “City with the Neon Skyline” because neon lights were used to outline the new facades.
 
Texas Escapes
WESLACO, TEXAS
Hidalgo County, South Texas
State Hwy 83 & FM 88
15 miles East of McAllen
15 miles West of Harlingen
7 miles SE to Nuevo Progresso, Mexico
Population: 26,935 (2000)
(...) 
The people of Weslaco came up with an idea to brighten the gloom of the Great Depression in 1936 by lighting two blocks of Texas Boulevard downtown with neon.
 
Valley History by Norma Rozeff
Weslaco Glowed Brightly in a Gloomy Period
Norman Rozeff
(...)
Newell’s conceptions of a revamped downtown were to win approval from the community. The combination of donations and loans from the Federal Housing Authority financed the project. And what was the concept to be implemented? All building on both sides of Texas Avenue between Third and Fifth Streets were to be given a uniform white stuccoed face-lift in Spanish style architecture. With remodeling of T.G. Cressner’s drug store, the transformation job commenced on January 27, 1936. Within a year’s time the work had been completed on the two blocks. This allowed the official dedication of the city’s remodeling program at the 1936 birthday party.
 
Weslaco became, or made itself, known as the “City That Lifted Its Face.” It wasn’t finished yet. Over the next year, 1937, it added vari-colored neon light tubing to outline and accentuate the buildings in the business district. In between structures, lighted designs provided the element of cohesiveness. Now Weslaco gleaned a new moniker – “The City with the Neon Skyline.” Without question the colored lights playing upon the white facades provided an air of modernity when the city celebrated its 18th Birthday in December 1937.
 
7 November 1937, Valley Sunday Star-Monitor-Herald (Brownsville, TX), pg. 12A, col. 1:
Valley’s Only Face-Lifted City Now Will Outline Skyline With Neon
WESLACO SET UNIQUE CITY IMPROVEMENT
Neon Tubes To Be Erected Soon
WESLACO—America’s only “face lifted” city comes to the front again with something still newer and more original in city beautification. Weslaco, Texas, located in the heart of the Rio Grande Valley, expects to be the first and only city in the United States to boast a neon lighted skyline, according to plans already completed by the Weslaco Chamber of Commerce.
 
Neon lights will be used to outline buildings in the business section of the city, comprised solely of buildings of Spanish architecture, a result of the “face lifting” campaign of a year ago.
 
The neon lights outlining against the night sky a city of gleaming white Spanish fronts and palm lined boulevards, will make Weslaco the beauty spot of the Rio Grande.
 
Every Weslaco merchant and owner of business property has signed for this new lighting display and work upon the project has started at once, according to Harry Batliff, secretary of the Weslaco Chamber of Commerce.
 
The new lighted skyline will be entirely completed before the annual fruit, flower, and vegetable fiesta of the lower Rio Grande Valley, which will be held in Weslaco on December 9th and 10th.
 
7 December 1937, Brownsville (TX)

, “Weslaco Begins on Installation of Neon Skyline,” pg. 1, col. 4:
WESLACO—Weslaco’s lighted skyline, the most spectacular addition to her eighteenth anniversary celebration December 9 and 10 and an original idea in city beautification, soon will be an established fact. A crew of workers from the General Neon Advertising Company in San Antonio arrived in Weslaco Monday to begin work on the project, which already has received wide publicity.
 
Vari-colored neon tubing is being used to outline the buildings in the entire business section. Between each building artistic lighted designs are being constructed.
 
23 October 1938, Valley Sunday Star-Monitor-Herald (Brownsville, TX), “Tip O’Texas Topics” by Harry Foehner, pg. 8, col. 7:
Many wondered why the Weslaco neon skyline was not ablaze recently. The answer was that the lights were drawing too many crickets and other bugs.
 
21 January 1940, Valley Sunday Star-Monitor-Herald (Brownsville, TX), magazine, pg. 2 photo caption:
Several years ago Weslaco “had its face lifted” by providing uniform Spanish type fronts for places of business fronting on Texas Avenue. Weslaco people were so proud of their Spanish Village effect, that they cast about for some way to make the improvements stand out at night also. They solved this by means of a neon outline of the tops of the buildings. This neon skyline extends several blocks and effectively sets off the Spanish type store fronts at night.
(Photo courtesy Weslaco Chamber of Commerce)
 
28 May 1944, Brownsville (TX) Herald, “Weslaco Neon Lights Will Be Seen Again,” pg. 9, col. 4:
WESLACO—The neon tubing which marks the building tops on both sides and the length of Weslaco’s main street, is to be repaired and lighted again, according to John Mothershed, secretary of the Weslaco Chamber of Commerce.
 
Weslaco won nation-wide fame in 1936, when a chamber of commerce committee headed by T. G. Cressner, began the project, making Weslaco “The City With the Neon Skyline.” The neon skyline has not been in operation since the beginning of the war.
 
Google Books
Weslaco
by Karen Gerhardt and Bianca Tamez
Charleston, SC: Arcadia Publishing
1999
Pg. 42 photo caption:
Weslaco businessmen, having coffee in Cressner’s Drug Store, discussed a way to improve the town despite the constraints of the Great Depression. Soon, sketches by architect R. Newell Waters were displayed downtown. On January 27, 1936, T.D. Cressner began the project by remodeling his store. By December 1936, two blocks of Texas Boulevard between Third and Fifth Streets were dressed in the white-stuccoed Spanish architectural style. In addition to improving the facades of their buildings, Weslaco businessmen added neon lights at roof height to create a unique identity for the city. Weslaco became known as “the town that lifted its face” and “the city with the neon skyline” because of the renovations. (Edrington Studio.)

Posted by Barry Popik
Texas (Lone Star State Dictionary) • Wednesday, July 16, 2008 • Permalink


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