And on the shore, you can get salt water taffy
There’s a nice article in Salon about the (not recent) death of the Great Sign that once graced the highways of America at thousands of Holiday Inns. I wouldn’t say the Great Sign was the pinnacle of retro kitsch tackiness, but it was certainly the most widely spread instance. According to the article, all the of the signs have been torn down (unlike McDonalds, where you will occasionally see an old 1950s-style golden arches, although they’re getting harder to find).
Of course, if you really want tacky, you’ve got to go to the mom-and-pop independents. That’s one of the reasons I love to go to Wildwood is the incredible concentration of garish hotel signs in one place.
Posted at 11:30 AM