Historic downtown Brockville sign on display once again

The New York Restaurant sign in its new permanent location at the Brockville Museum. (Nate Vandermeer/CTV News Ottawa)

BROCKVILLE, ONT. -

A downtown Brockville sign that was once a mainstay along King Street, has finally found a new home.

The New York Restaurant sign, with its giant red ball, now sits proudly in the Carriage Hall at the Brockville Museum.

"We are very, very excited with this display," said Viktor Kaczkowski, community engagement officer at the museum.

"A year and a half ago when the New York Restaurant was sold we got wind of that and contacted the new owners fairly quickly and said, 'Listen, that sign is iconic. It needs to be kept for future generations to see it.' They agreed to donate the sign to us."

The Lor Family originally opened the Chinese restaurant in 1930, and this version of the sign was installed in 1971. The restaurant closed in 2019.

"It was there for well almost 50 years, 49 years, and now it's in the museum and hopefully it will stay here forever," added Kaczkowski.

"Around 1970-71 they installed a new sign, somewhat similar to the old sign as it kept some of the neon elements, but the old sign had a big phoenix on top with flames and it was quite spectacular," Kaczkowski said.

"This sign was installed, looking somewhat more contemporary as many signs, downtown signs, looked this way back then," he said.

The whereabouts of the original sign is still unknown.

With a height of 15 feet and width of 7 feet, it weighs between 500 and 600 pounds.

"The original plan was to have it a bit further back against the mural on the back wall, but once we got the sign in and upright, we discovered it just wouldn't fit so it's been pulled out a little bit more," said Kaczkowski with a laugh.

"You walk into the front door of the museum, you look at this red ball and you think is this some sort of space age, Sputnik kind of exhibit? And then you come in and you realize its part of this amazing sign," he added.

While the neon does not light up, the plan is to get them working again in the future.

The museum had aimed to display the sign sooner, but the COVID-19 pandemic brought that plan to a stand still.

For some of the first visitors who saw the sign this week, it brought back instant memories.

"They walked in and looked at the sign and first of all they said, 'It makes me feel old!'" Kaczkowski said. "Then it turned out that he had proposed to his wife that day and they went to dinner that evening at the New York Restaurant, which is a really cool story."

The rest of the Carriage Hall displays items from Brockville's industrial and commercial past, sharing tidbits about each artifact.

Kaczkowski said the 40 for 40 fundraiser the museum held in June brought in a total of $12,600, with some of that money used to anchor the iconic sign in its new location.

"We had some very generous donors, individuals and companies," Kaczkowski said. "Northern Cables came in and gave us a cheque for $5,000 one day so that put us over the top and allowed us to do almost everything that we wanted to do, so we are really grateful to our local supporters."