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Compromise may allow Clark candy bar sign to stay
Thursday, May 04, 2000 By Jeffrey Cohan, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
The Clark Tribune-Review?
No, that other newspaper is not moving again.
But the newspaper's name might end up on a sign just below the 950-square-foot Clark candy bar sign atop a North Side building.
City Historic Review Commission Chairman John DeSantis pitched just such a compromise yesterday, hoping to satisfy preservationists who view the 52-year-old Clark sign as a North Side landmark and Tribune-Review executives who want to replace the candy bar with their own sign.
"It may be the way through the horns of a dilemma," DeSantis said near the end of an hour-long public hearing on a proposal to declare the Clark sign a historic landmark.
Landmark status would prevent building owner Merrill Stabile from altering or tearing down the sign without Historic Review Commission approval. But the superstructure supporting the giant Clark bar has space for another sign, presenting an opportunity for compromise, the chairman said.
City Councilwoman Barbara Burns, who joined Councilman Sala Udin in nominating the Clark sign for historic status, said she is willing to negotiate a compromise, while attorney E.J. Strassburger, representing the Tribune-Review, said his client would consider DeSantis' idea if the city Zoning Board of Adjustment would allow a second sign.
Stabile and Tribune-Review executives offered a different compromise, pledging to donate at least $25,000 toward moving the Clark sign to a museum or other location.
Burns rejected that offer.
"The sign has become a landmark for the North Side at its present location and that would be diminished if it was moved," she said.
The giant candy bar, visible from Downtown, has remained atop Stabile's roof even though Clark moved its candymaking operation from the building in the mid-1980s. The Tribune-Review has since become a tenant in the building, while Clark's new owners have abandoned the Pittsburgh area altogether, moving operations to Massachusetts.
Tribune-Review officials say they moved into Stabile's building largely for the opportunity to advertise their newspaper in such a highly visible location.
At yesterday's hearing, they brought out Gus Corso, a longtime Clark employee and union steward.
Corso complained that city officials stood idly by when New England Confectionery Co. bought Clark at a bankruptcy auction last year and moved operations to Cambridge, Mass., eliminating more than 100 jobs in the Pittsburgh area.
"I find it ridiculous that the city is concerned about this sign but they weren't concerned about the people who worked in the factory," Corso told the commission. "I guess I'm a little emotional about it. Seeing that sign sort of just keeps digging at you."
Arthur Ziegler, president of Pittsburgh History & Landmarks Foundation, sent the commission a letter last month saying, "To declare an advertising sign historic when it has no further sponsorship by the advertiser is pointless."
DeSantis said the sign has a shot at achieving historic status and implored both sides to negotiate a compromise in advance of the commission's second and final hearing, set for June 7.
Still unresolved is who would pay to repair, maintain and power the neon sign if it is declared a landmark.
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