Sky Neon Signs renovated two large signs atop the historic Divine Lorraine Hotel on Broad Street in North Philadelphia. Each channel letter was 4 feet high and had to be taken down, cleaned and repainted. Some of them needed just the right touch to be as good as new, as you can see by one of our workers “hand-crafting” the channel for the letter V.  We fabricated and installed red neon for each letter, mounted them in their frames, and covered them with Plexiglas faces to protect the neon from weather damage.  Before mounting them, we did some work on the iron frame.  At such great heights,  the signs had to be secure and up to code.

You can also consider the “V” for victory for the neighborhood too.  The Divine Lorraine has taken on a new life as luxury rentals.  It has been restored to its former glory, inside and out. The signs are a bright beacon that can be seen for many blocks away.

According to Wikipedia, architect Willis G. Hale designed the original Lorraine Apartments building, built in the 1890’s.  In 1900 the building became the Lorraine Hotel. Later it would become the first hotel in Philadelphia to be racially integrated after being purchased by Father Divine.  Closed just 100 years later, in 1990, the hotel was abandoned.  It became covered in graffiti, with broken windows and crumbling stone, as this video shows.  The massive rehab project began in 2015, and Sky Neon Signs completed the signs in 2016.

Read about the Divine Lorraine’s storied history in this article by “Untapped Cities”.