http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2013...pin_again.html
By: Laura Kane News reporter, Published on Sun Sep 08 2013
When Jack Markle was wooing his wife-to-be, he would drive her around Toronto, pointing to his neon signs like glowing tourist landmarks.
“That one’s mine,” he’d say, as they breezed past a flashing fast food mascot or a swirling logo atop a movie theatre.
These days, the spry 74-year-old sign maker can still claim plenty of the city’s signage as his own. But two of his crowning achievements are set to fade from Toronto’s skyline.
Markle and his brother, Sam, created both Sam the Record Man’s spinning LP and the computer that illuminates Honest Ed’s giant, whirling letters (although the Mirvish store sign itself was designed by a different firm).
Ryerson University recently bailed on a deal to reinstall the Sam the Record Man sign on its new Yonge St. building, while David Mirvish announced plans in July to sell the entire block and a half where Honest Ed’s stands.
As Markle flips through a photo album in the Brothers Markle headquarters, surrounded by buzzing neon art, he calls Sam’s sign both an “icon” and a “drawing card to Toronto.”
“It’s history,” he says. “You wouldn’t go to Paris without seeing the Eiffel Tower, you wouldn’t go to New York without seeing Times Square. . . . It’s the same thing. You can’t go to Toronto without seeing Sam the Record Man.”
Markle is one of more than 900 people who have signed a petition to stop the city from letting Ryerson off the hook for rehanging the sign, which the university promised to do in 2008 after purchasing the Sam the Record Man property.
Ryerson has unveiled an alternative plan to embed replica signs in the sidewalk and hang a commemorative plaque, which will be debated Tuesday by the Toronto and East York Community Council.
“I think that’s a big mistake,” says Markle. “The sign was visible by all vehicular traffic. If it snows, you won’t even be able to see the sidewalk.”
Markle launched his sign making business with his brother in the mid-1960s. Several years later, Sam Sniderman contacted them about changing a small sign on his Yonge St. storefront.
But the Markles weren’t content to let Sniderman stay small. When one of their designers, Jack Derraugh, suggested a two-storey spinning record with lit neon tubes, they urged the record store owner to use the bold design.
Sniderman initially balked at the $16,000 price tag, but after he convinced RCA, Columbia, Sony and Warner Bros. to chip in $5,000 each to feature their logos on the sign, he ended up profiting from the purchase.
“Sam got us to do the names in there for free,” says Markle with a chuckle. “But we didn’t care. We knew if we made the sign, it would become an icon in Toronto.”
Markle’s company also created giant letters spelling “SAM” that sat on top of the building. In the 1980s, Sniderman added a second spinning-record sign, which Markle called “overkill.”
In fact, the sign maker is now recommending that Ryerson only put up one of the signs and fundraise the cost. Musicians such as Gordon Lightfoot, Ron Sexsmith and Danny Marks have voiced their support for the iconic sign.
Markle also disputes many of Ryerson’s reasons why restoring and hanging the sign is impractical. He called a projected $250,000 price tag “astronomical,” adding he would like a chance to do an estimate of his own.
He also says the sign only required occasional maintenance over the years, with neon tubes lasting up to a decade. And while neon experts are becoming harder to find, they aren’t obsolete, he adds.
As for mercury spillage in the event of fire or damage — one of the concerns raised by the university and city — Markle scoffs. The sign was up for 40-odd years without incident, he says.
“Did you hear about all those people in Times Square who died of mercury poisoning?” he jokes. “All those people in Tokyo? What a tragedy.”
A woman who answered the phone at Gregory’s, the sign company consulted by Ryerson, said the person who completed the estimate was on vacation. She did not provide a name.
As for Honest Ed’s, the Toronto retail landmark destined for sale by 2016, Markle says the sign is so massive he isn’t sure where the city would be able to house it, if at all. The store manager has said the sign is too damaged to save.
The Brothers Markle is still going strong, creating signs and lighting for municipalities, retailers and the occasional private home. Fewer people ask for neon these days, but it’s still his favourite medium, says Markle.
“Neon is not dead. It is still an exciting art form. It would be a pity and a shame to have (Sam’s sign) come down.”