Another piece of local history will go up for sale when the Baltimore Museum of Industry offers fragments of the recently-dismantled Domino Sugars sign for sale to support its mission.
Domino Sugar Baltimore announced this week that the Museum of Industry is one of several organizations or companies that will receive the letters from the nearly 70-year-old neon sign that is being replaced with an LED sign.
Domino said a statement that the largest letter, the 20-foot-high ‘D,’ was made up of several pieces, the “most affected by rust,” and was deemed unsalvageable. As a result, the company said, it plans to make souvenirs out of the D to share with the 500 employees of its Baltimore refinery.
In addition, it said, “we…hope to make some pieces available to the public for sale at the Baltimore Museum of Industry to help support their mission.”
Domino said the dot over the ‘i’ will also move to the Museum of Industry and the ‘a’ will be given to Anderson Industrial Contracting, the company taking down the sign.
The remaining letters and border will find a home at Second Chance Inc., an organization with a 250,000-square-foot warehouse and showroom at 1700 Ridgely Street in south Baltimore.
“This vital nonprofit equips Baltimore residents facing employment barriers with vocational skills like deconstruction, salvage and warehousing,” Domino said. “We are happy these historic pieces will be more closely accessible to the public.”
Second Chance has accepted other noteworthy signs and artifacts, including the neon Bel-Loc Diner sign after it came down on Joppa Road in 2017.
“It is a genuine honor for us to house much of this historic Baltimore icon for all to continue to enjoy at 1700 Ridgely Street,” Second Chance said in a message on Facebook.
Although some have suggested that the letters be donated to the American Sign Museum in Ohio, Domino said it wanted to “donate the letters locally.”
The Museum of Industry, at 1415 Key Highway, has created a “Domino Sign Souvenirs Notification Form” that people can fill out if they want to get additional information and updates about the sign and souvenirs.
Domino will mark the 100th anniversary of its Baltimore refinery next year and is spending $2 million to replace its neon sign with an LED sign. Work began on March 1 and is expected to be complete by the Fourth of July. As of yesterday, the only letters still up were the ‘n’ and ‘o’ in Domino.
