Jude Cook has been working to fix the neon Coronado Hotel sign that stood in Downtown Tucson, a piece of history that dates back about seventy years ago.It’s one of the three signs that were damaged by monsoon winds about three weeks ago.“It’s satisfying work, but it’s dirty work,” Cook commented.He’s the owner of Cook and Company Sign Makers and the founder of the Ignite Sign Art Museum.He said the wind was strong enough to cause one of the sign’s wires to pull out of the wall.
However, he said the recent damage on the three historic neon signs is the most amount of damage to historic neon signs he’s seen in recent years.“The faces are flexible. If you get enough wind, you create a vacuum and it sucks the face in or sucks the face out,” he said.He said there is a difference between restoring historic signs versus some of the modern signs we see.“Most of the historic signs are steel. Most of the new signs are aluminum.