Well, if all goes according to plan, the lettering, with its distinctive, cursive 'R', will be going to a neon museum, but not the one in Las Vegas. Several smaller signs and ornaments are already in the Neon Boneyard. As the museum's Dawn Merritt explains, "We chose signage we could put into the yard immediately." Hence the decision to pass on the biggest Riviera sign of them all.
But don’t despair: You may not be able to see the "Riviera" lettering in Las Vegas but there's a good chance you'll be able to admire it up close … in Reno. Neon-sign collector Will Durham took on the mammoth task of obtaining the sign and transporting it to northern Nevada, where it will hopefully be one of the signature displays in a planned neon museum. Exclaimed Durham to TV station 3 News Las Vegas, "This sign is pretty big. The R is over 16 feet tall!" He also hopes to rescue a second, smaller sign that combines neon with wedge-based bulbs.
A small sample of Durham's 70-sign collection, including signage from the Sahara and the beloved Mapes Hotel (two conjoined cowboy silhouettes that form an 'M'), was previously put on view as part of a 2013 exhibit at the Nevada Museum of Art.
"Nevada is the story of the American dream," Durham told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "It's the story of boom and bust and hubris. People change Nevada with ideas and effective persuasion. Everyone's excited about the new, but there's no reason to forget about our dynamic history." So Carson City school employee Durham embarked on a two-decade quest to snap up and preserve as much neon signage as he could, starting with the Zephyr Motel's marquee, in 1996. He cleans, repairs and restores the signs to their original, flickering glory.
While some of the creative design work he saved from destruction has familiar names, others hail from largely forgotten holes in the wall like the Heart O'Town and Merry Wink motels, and the El Cholo restaurant or the Deux Gros Nez ("Two Big Noses") coffee shop. "When your sign is part of this collection, your business lives on — it's not really dead," Durham told the newspaper. He's also on a mission to raise awareness of Reno's golden age and the time when it, not Las Vegas, was the destination city in Nevada.
Last month, the Reno City Council deputized staff members to find a permanent site for the Durham collection. Ideally, it would be in the heart of Reno. However, downtown is a jigsaw puzzle of small land parcels, so finding sufficient acreage for all of Durham's trophies won't be easy. The search is complicated further by Durham's desire to incorporate a restaurant and craft-beer bar into his would-be museum, a plan that may be more idealistic than realistic.
Just getting the Riviera signs down was a daunting task. "We'll have to hire a sign company at about $500 an hour," Durham says in a YouTube video pitch for funds. "We'll also need to pay for permits to shut down Rivera Boulevard and also [pay for] the transportation. It gets expensive very quickly." Durham even launched an Indiegogo campaign to finance the salvage of the Riviera sign but, when we last checked, he had raised only $606 of his $3,800 goal and his video plea had only received 37 views.
An unsuccessful Internet fundraising drive, however, proved no deterrent to Durham. Where there was a Will Durham there was somehow a way. (Durham did not respond to an LVA request for comment, unfortunately.) On April 12, he posted on Facebook, "At 5:18 am April 11th, the lights on the legendary Riviera Casino went dark forever! The [Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority] was gracious to allow us to preserve the iconic animated red neon script. We were able to preserve this giant without any damage! The most interesting thing about this project was the attention from the press. Every news outlet in Las Vegas covered the removal. The NBC affiliate did live broadcasts all morning as we carefully took down the sign. It was nice to see the interest and respect for Nevada's neon legacy. A huge thank you to our Indiegogo supporters! This was a true team effort and it felt good to give this icon a bright future!"
There are times, though, when even Durham wonders about what he's doing. His collecting has given him his fair share of cuts and scrapes from dismounting signage ("There's very little that's fun about it," he says), but reckons in the end that having and preserving the signs makes it all worthwhile.
