People can get a mite prickly when longtime landmarks suddenly go missing from the streets they drive every single day.
Take the Bullwinkle statue that lifted off the Sunset Strip in July. Animation fans and preservationists alike claimed the cartoon landmark would be much moosed.
Er, missed.
There's more historic-things-going-bye-bye news from the Strip: The Tiffany Theatre, formerly located at 8532 W. Sunset Boulevard, has recently met the wrecking ball. Next up for the La Cienega-close space? A hotel development.
Did you just flashback to your youth, when you used to dress in full fishnetty garb for showings of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" there? Yes, you probably did. Many, many people saw the cult film at the Tiffany, which became one of the premiere venues anywhere to regularly show the participatory favorite at midnight screenings again and again and again.
But here's the twist in this story: Alison Martino of the past-loving website Vintage LA and San Fernando Valley Relics have stepped up to save the Tiffany's marquee-bulbed sign. Tommy Gelinas' of San Fernando Valley Relics has been an instrumental figure in saving the stuff of our city, while Ms. Martino actively calls attention to those places that may soon be lost to time.
Lisa Kurtz Sutton is helping pay for the sign's removal, too, which is happening on Monday, Aug. 26.
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So, where will the sign live on? At the Valley Relics Museum. It's over the hill from Sunset but not too far from the spot where it twinkled over thousands of nights from the late '60s onward. (Props to Jason, a Valley Relics volunteer who removed the sign.)
The sign-saving is also a testament to individuals standing up to secure our past, even if it means moving it to a new location. Ms. Sutton and Ms. Martino and Mr. Gelinas are not corporations but people who banded together to preserve a part of Los Angeles they love. More proof that anybody with a little get-up and go and a bit of funding can lend a hand in the important work of keeping our past treasures intact.
