From a cross-legged Ronald McDonald to a martini glass filled with olives, classic neon signs fill Let There Be Neon, a Lower Manhattan boutique that makes all of its signs in-house. What makes this glow warm and bright? When electricity powers a tube filled with inert neon gas, the tube lights up, explains Jeff Friedman, owner of Let There Be Neon since 1990. “Neon is red when lit, the pure color of neon. But we also use argon, which is blue, and by combining the different gases with different colors of glass or phosphor inside the tube, that’s how we get all the different colors, ”Friedman said. .
The 325-square-meter (3,500-square-foot) boutique was founded by light artist, painter and documentary maker Rudy Stern in 1972, and Friedman began working there five years later.
Illuminated signs in all the colors of the rainbow light up the store, while glass benders hold tubes to blue flames, shaping them into various letters and designs.
Over the decades, other forms of lighting – such as LEDs – have become cheaper to manufacture and neon signs have fallen out of favor, but not at Let There Be Neon.
“Neon is pure, it’s handmade, it’s made of glass, it’s recyclable,” Friedman said, listing what he thinks are the advantages of neon over plastic lighting.
“Before COVID, we were making more neon lights than we’ve ever made before,” he said. “When COVID hit, it was like cigarettes were burning in ashtrays.”
Friedman hopes business will return as people regain confidence, and says the amount of work they’ve been given has been steadily increasing again.
“It’s nowhere near where it was before COVID, but the lights are on, we have existed, we have survived.”
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