Wondering what happened to the neon “DRUGS” sign that once sat on top of the Pharmasave building in Edgemont Village?The building is long gone. Pharmasave moved across the street and didn’t want to move the sign with them. The new building, now an HSBC bank, didn’t want a sign that has no bearing on its business.
Robert Watt, a historian, archivist and former Chief Herald of Canada, wants the sign returned to the Village. As the curator of history at the Vancouver Museum, he was instrumental in starting a neon collection in the late 1970s and has lived in Edgemont since 1990.
The sign, he says is “iconic” in Edgemont Village, connects residents to the streetscape and should be an integral part of the area’s heritage. The RX stands for Rexall, the original pharmacy at that location, while the mortar and pestle at the top of the sign represents the tool that pharmacists once used to crush, grind and mix substances.
Many of Metro Vancouver’s neon signs wound up on the scrap heap, but the 1957 girl on the swing was recently restored and relocated. The letters changed from “Helen’s” to “Heights” as a way to continue its significance to the Burnaby Heights district.
- While no one wants to rob the sign of its heritage importance, maybe we need to make some compromises. Let’s face it, not a lot of businesses want the word “drugs” above their logo, there isn’t a lot of district-owned land available in the area, and if the sign is turned on, then it needs to be away from a residential neighbourhood.
The sign now belongs to the District of North Vancouver and is presently crated up in the operations centre.
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1 comment on “Pharmasave Neon Sign”
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