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Sunday, February 13, 2000
By Brian O'Neill
What I love about this town are the just-this-side-of-goofy flaps.
Take the fight to preserve the Clark candy bar sign just east of Three Rivers Stadium, a battle of profound irrelevance that should nonetheless spark a visceral reaction in any true Pittsburgher.
When I heard last week that the Tribune-Review wanted to replace this familiar neon landmark with a sign of its own, my immediate thought was: Where can we get some torches and pitchforks?
I mean, the sign's atop the D.L. Clark Building. And that sign has been there forever. And the Clark bar, though no longer made here, is a delicious confection of corn syrup, cocoa and nuts, whereas the Tribune-Review doesn't contain corn syrup or cocoa.
Barbara Burns, the city councilwoman representing most of the North Side, says constituents began calling weeks ago about a suddenly dark C-L-A-R-K. So 10 days ago, she and Councilman Sala Udin submitted a nomination to have the sign declared historic, putting the Trib's electric dreams on hold.
Jim Brown, the city zoning administrator, had already OK'd the change in signs. The Clark sign doesn't conform with the city zoning code, but had been grandfathered in. So Brown, taking a cue from that old North Sider, Gertrude Stein, decided a sign is a sign is a sign. Another sign could take the spot without a hearing, as long as it is no larger.
Why the Trib, a Clark Building tenant since last summer, would feel comfortable with a sign on the roof's far left, I leave to its editorial writers to explain.
Burns, whose mother and stepmother both worked in the Clark factory, says she wants a hearing on this because the Clark bar "rose to national prominence here in our city. It's part of our history. I think the sign deserves its fair hearing, rather than just have it one day be gone."
Burns contends the sign goes back to 1935, though Merrill Stabile, the building owner, says he saw documentation years ago that it went up in 1958.
"I remember that," Stabile said, "because that's the same year I was born. And I thought, 'Gee, I'm not a historic landmark.' "
Either way, the Historic Review Commission hearing is March 10. Later hearings before the planning commission and City Council could follow. Only then might we know whether the sign, bearing a name that meant candy manufacturing around here from 1886 to 1999, must stay put.
This is not the first time a newspaper's sign met roadblocks. Five years ago, the Post-Gazette's plan for an internally lit sign on the west side of our bunker was toned down by city planners. Our 69-foot sign -- smaller than we'd wanted -- is illuminated by floodlights only on Light Up Night and during "Monday Night Football."
We never thought to ride into the night on the back of a stale candy bar. But H. Yale Gutnick, the Trib's attorney, had a point when he said: "Here you have a company [Clark] that left the city, left the people hanging. And here's another company [the Trib] that comes into town and employs many, many people, and they don't want that company to have a sign?"
Gutnick says the company would be happy to give the big metal candy bar to the Senator John Heinz Pittsburgh Regional History Center. Candace Cain of Fineview, who alerted Burns to the sign's peril, says that's all she ever expected.
Me, I confess becoming agnostic on the question. Frankly, my dear, I'm a Snicker's man.