Crick’s Camera Shop
Crick’s Camera Shop
The Crick’s Camera Shop neon, LUMI’s first acquisition and the impetus for our existence, was donated by Dana Crick in 2017.
The original Crick’s Camera Shop opened in 1946 at 63rd and Brookside Plaza in The Brookside Theatre Building of Kansas City, Missouri. Thelma & Bill Crick owned and operated the tiny retail store. Their first sale was a 37-cent roll of film. The neon sign was pink and green, colors popular in the 1940s.
Crick’s Camera Shop quickly outgrew its original space and moved twice more within Brookside before moving to its final location in 2003 on State Line Road. Anywhere the shop moved, the neon sign went with it.
During the 1960s the shop was incorporated and the neon sign was e-fabricated to the new Crick Camera Shop.
Daughter of Thelma and Bill, Dana Crick remembers: “By the 1980s the neon was malfunctioning, the paint flaking, and my mother wondered whether we should just replace it with something new. My brother, sister and I insisted the sign be painted and serviced to its original glow. The paint color was shifted from a dark green to a more contemporary teal, the neon still pink & green. I remember that when the sign was taken down for refurbishment, I noticed that the back of the sign appeared to be a repurposed old highway road sign.”
“70 years after the sign was made and it was time to close the doors of the shop permanently, my brother-in-law made arrangements to have the sign scrapped. I canceled that decision and put word out on social media that the sign needed a home. Nick Vedros rescued it with professional help from Whitney Graves of Metal Works.”
The Crick’s Camera Shop neon, LUMI’s first acquisition and the impetus for our existence, was donated by Dana Crick in 2017.
The original Crick’s Camera Shop opened in 1946 at 63rd and Brookside Plaza in The Brookside Theatre Building of Kansas City, Missouri. Thelma & Bill Crick owned and operated the tiny retail store. Their first sale was a 37-cent roll of film. The neon sign was pink and green, colors popular in the 1940s.
Crick’s Camera Shop quickly outgrew its original space and moved twice more within Brookside before moving to its final location in 2003 on State Line Road. Anywhere the shop moved, the neon sign went with it.
During the 1960s the shop was incorporated and the neon sign was e-fabricated to the new Crick Camera Shop.
Daughter of Thelma and Bill, Dana Crick remembers: “By the 1980s the neon was malfunctioning, the paint flaking, and my mother wondered whether we should just replace it with something new. My brother, sister and I insisted the sign be painted and serviced to its original glow. The paint color was shifted from a dark green to a more contemporary teal, the neon still pink & green. I remember that when the sign was taken down for refurbishment, I noticed that the back of the sign appeared to be a repurposed old highway road sign.”
“70 years after the sign was made and it was time to close the doors of the shop permanently, my brother-in-law made arrangements to have the sign scrapped. I canceled that decision and put word out on social media that the sign needed a home. Nick Vedros rescued it with professional help from Whitney Graves of Metal Works.”
