{"id":20498,"date":"2021-09-30T11:06:25","date_gmt":"2021-09-30T15:06:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/?p=20498"},"modified":"2021-09-30T11:06:25","modified_gmt":"2021-09-30T15:06:25","slug":"electric-avenue-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/electric-avenue-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Electric Avenue"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"position: relative; padding-top: max(60%,326px); height: 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"position: absolute; border: none; width: 100%; height: 100%; left: 0; right: 0; top: 0; bottom: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/e.issuu.com\/embed.html?backgroundColor=%23e6e6e6&amp;d=portland_monthly_magazine_october_2021&amp;hideIssuuLogo=true&amp;pageNumber=18&amp;u=portlandmagazine\" width=\"300\" height=\"150\" sandbox=\"allow-top-navigation allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation allow-downloads allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-modals allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<h3 class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">Keeping home up in lights<\/span><\/h3>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span class=\"s1\">By Colin W. Sargent<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\"><span class=\"s1\">Neon is the vibrant niche where <strong>business and culture collide<\/strong><b>. <\/b>Just<b> <\/b>ask John Roberts of <strong>Jayar Signs<\/strong>. A city is most spectacular when it has a glow on.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">When we called Bailey Sign in Westbrook, they said nobody in Maine repairs or designs neon from glass. They said we\u2019d have to contact an out-of-state guy.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">His name is <strong>Neon Williams<\/strong>. I went to his shop [in Somerville, MA] one time, but he wasn\u2019t open that day. Neon\u2019s a funny business. First it\u2019s hot, then everybody says it\u2019s dead, then it comes back. I find myself in a unique position: I\u2019m the only full-service neon-glass shop in southern Maine.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p3\"><strong><span class=\"s1\">How did you get started in neon?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p class=\"p4\"><span class=\"s1\">My father opened up a branch of <strong>United Neon<\/strong> in <strong>Houlton<\/strong> in 1938. I was born up there in 1941. But everybody went running back to <strong>Portland<\/strong> because the neon business went dark during <strong>World War II<\/strong> when there were blackouts in all the cities. Dad worked on <strong>Liberty ships<\/strong> as a painter at the shipyard in <strong>South Portland<\/strong>. I went to <strong>South Portland High<\/strong>, 1956-59. Then I got married and went back for another year. I took some night courses in electricity at <strong>Southern Maine Vocational Technical Institute<\/strong>, courses in engineering drawing.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p6\"><span class=\"s1\">After the war, my father worked as a sign man at <strong>United Neon<\/strong> on Elm Street in <strong>Portland<\/strong>. The building still stands. I have a picture: my father\u2019s in it, my brother\u2019s in it, the crew of 1950. I joined them in 1957.=<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p8\"><em><span class=\"s1\">Read the full story in the digital magazine above.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p class=\"p8\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-20499\" src=\"http:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/OCT21-Electric-1024x538.jpg\" alt=\"OCT21 Electric\" width=\"1024\" height=\"538\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/OCT21-Electric-1024x538.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/OCT21-Electric-300x158.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/OCT21-Electric-768x403.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/OCT21-Electric-200x105.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/OCT21-Electric-620x326.jpg 620w, https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/OCT21-Electric.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Keeping home up in lights<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":20500,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20498"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20498\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20548,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20498\/revisions\/20548"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portlandmonthly.com\/portmag\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}