In a city that once rivalled Las Vegas for neon lights, one museum is making sure Vancouver\u2019s vibrant history isn\u2019t forgotten.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the idea behind \u201cLighting Up the Past: Vancouver\u2019s Neon Signs\u201d \u2014 the latest in a series of \u2018talk and tea\u2019 events at the Old Hastings Mill Store Museum in Point Grey.<\/p>\n
Photographer Gord McCaw will take audiences on a guided tour of dozens of the city\u2019s iconic neon signs from the 1950s and \u201960s.<\/p>\n
McCaw points to reports at the time that claimed there were 18,000 neon signs in Vancouver.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe actually had more signs at one point than Las Vegas did, and rivalled Shanghai, China, for just sheer numbers of signs\u2026 In a rainy climate like ours, there\u2019s nothing quite like that shimmering, multicoloured light on the wet street,\u201d McCaw told 1130 NewsRadio.<\/p>\n
He says his talk will cover the roughly 60 vintage neon signs he\u2019s been photographing since 1984.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of those I shot in the 80s, some as late as into the early 2000s. I would say probably close to 90 per cent of those have now disappeared off the landscape.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLighting Up the Past: Vancouver\u2019s Neon Signs\u201d starts this Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Old Hastings Mill Store Museum. <\/p>\n