Share
For decades, the flashing JFG coffee billboard stood as a familiar beacon welcoming visitors to Charlotte and representing the last stretch home for weary travelers.
Today at 7:30 a.m., the sign just south of Bank of America Stadium next to Interstate 277 comes down after a more than four-decade run as a fixture on Charlotte's skyline.
In its place: An advertisement for OrthoCarolina, which plans to use three oversized letters - ACL - as a tribute to the old coffee sign.
Tom Hanchett, staff historian at Levine Museum of the New South, said Charlotte needs to better preserve its physical tethers to the past.
"Charlotte is a place that seems to have systematically removed any evidence it existed more than 15 minutes ago," he said Sunday after learning the sign was coming down. "It's good to keep some old things around to remind us how people have worked to create a city."
It wasn't clear Sunday if the old sign will be preserved after it's taken down.
Over the years, the sign became a flashing reminder of Charlotte's past, before it became a New South boomtown. Back then, a billboard aglow with hundreds of dancing lights represented the state of the art in outdoor advertising.
The bulbs, at one time, flashed off in sequence from the top of the sign to the bottom, making the JFG letters appear to empty like coffee being sipped from a cup.
The warm blue sign, with its slogan "The Best Part Of The Meal" written in white cursive, also became known as an enduring landmark as it survived several brushes with death.
It was preserved in the 1980s when 3M National Advertising moved it several feet to avoid the path of I-277. And it re-emerged at a new location in 1995 after 17 months in storage because 3M had lost its lease on the sign's location.
To relaunch, the sign needed a special zoning variance because it was too big for modern regulations.
At the time, Mayor Richard Vinroot, feeling nostalgic for the sign's unchanging character, fought to save it.
It was reborn in 1995, a little smaller and without its flashing lights. They were replaced by neon bulbs.
About 150 fans held a welcome-back ceremony with cake and JFG Coffee at the base of the billboard, near the dead end of Cedar Street.
