THE SAG HARBOR EXPRESS
ISSUE DATE: 7/07/05 July 2005

Cinema Sign on Track

By Beth Young

After a year that saw the bungling of the creation of a new sign by a now-defunct sign company, the long-awaited Sag Harbor cinema sign is nearly complete.

The Sign Guys, the Bay Shore firm hired by Brenda Siemer to finally oversee the construction of the new sign, will be making the final decisions on the color to paint it this week.

The neon work is 85 percent complete, and the long raceway, the band of colored lights under the word "Harbor," is done. The raceway under the word "Sag" still needs to be completed, but the letters for the whole sign have been constructed.

The sign saga has been in the hearts and minds of the people of Sag Harbor since the original rusting art deco sign was taken down from the building last May. At the time, the theater's owner, Gerry Mallow, had hoped to replace it with a plastic replica that bore little resemblance to the original.

Siemer, and other members of the community, took the original sign from the site and placed it in the grass by the Whaling Museum, refusing to let workers install the new sign. The white and blue storefront on Main Street has remained vacant ever since.

They campaigned last summer to raise $20,000 to reconstruct the sign. Then came the catch. Mallow had insisted that the work be completed by the company that built the original sign replacement. Above All Signs in Ronkonkoma.

After a tedious trip to Above All Signs' headquarters, with the "Harbor" portion of the sign tied to a boat trailer, the project went downhill.

Despite the presence of the original sign to take measurements for the replication, the signmakers had difficulty drafting a recreation of the original sign. After a prolonged wait for the right aluminum for the new sign to arrive, any measurable work had still not been completed by the winter. The dusty remains of the original word "Sag" had still not been repaired in order to be sent to Christie Brinkley and Peter Cook, who won the sign at an auction to benefit both the new sign and the Bay Street Theatre, last summer.

Fate, though, turned in favor of the project when Siemer realized this spring that Above All Signs had, in fact, gone out of business. She immediately hired Clayton Orehek of The Sign Guys, who all along had been her and many other sign experts' choice to work on the project.

The Sign Guys are now assembling the letters, which will have aluminum doors that open to allow the sign to be serviced. The cost of the project has not yet been determined.