After a long, arduous restoration process, the marquee at the historic Hollywood Theater in Gowanda, New York can shine a little brighter with LED signage from Watchfire Signs and a dedicated group of local volunteers.

Marquee restoration for the Hollywood Theater in Gowanda, New York took three years, but organizers believe the finish product was worth the wait. Provided

April 5, 2022 | by Kevin Damask — Editor, Digital Signage Today

After a long, arduous restoration process, the marquee at the historic Hollywood Theater in Gowanda, New York can shine brighter with LED signage from Watchfire Signs and the work of a dedicated group of volunteers.

Watchfire provided an 8-millimeter LED sign that attracts moviegoers to the decades-old cinema. With the $250,000 restoration complete, the Hollywood Theater can return to showing films and hosting music camps for the local community.

Watchfire, a 90-year-old company, specializes in LED lights and signage that can withstand weather conditions and function for many years. The company, which also supplies software to operate its signage, has more than 65,000 LED displays and supplies signage to digital outdoor customers across the U.S.

Nancy Redeye, architect for the restoration project, called Watchfire to see if the company was interested in helping out and representatives traveled to Gowanda to check out the theater, owned by Gowanda's Historic Hollywood Theater Ltd.

"The site visit allowed us to study the existing conditions, hear their vision and make recommendations on fabrication methods and integration of our digital technology," Evan Walsh, Territory Manager, Watchfire Signs, said in an email. "It also gave us the opportunity to demonstrate Watchfire products and different resolutions, then provide an overview of scope of work."

The LED refurbishment took more than three years. Watchfire built a custom product to meet the theater's specifications and shipped it to the company's dealer, Signs Unlimited, which completed fabrication work. Every few months, Walsh would stop into Signs Unlimited to see how the project was progressing.

"It was critical that the 'fit and finish' of the digital displays flawlessly meshed with the marquee structure. This wasn't a project that could be installed in the field," Walsh said. "Because of this, we knew it could potentially be a while before the marquee and all related fabrication would be complete and installed."

As work began, the design and fabrication of the marquee posed the biggest challenge. Watchfire wanted to duplicate the exact image of the marquee from the 1950's. Every detail needed to be accurate with correct paint colors, exposed neon lighting, and retro-style flashers and chasers that were "extremely difficult to source" at the height of the pandemic supply chain issue, according to Walsh. "For our part, it was a priority that the digital display had a tight pitch to meet their vision for the marquee and how it would be used," Walsh said. "We worked with them to select an 8-millimeter (pitch) to deliver the balance of vibrant, true-to-life colors and the smooth visual they were looking for. Because of the way that the marquee goes together, the theater and Signs Unlimited wanted a product that could perform for the long haul."

While the work was challenging, Walsh knew what the restoration meant to the group trying to save the theater and the Gowanda community. In 2018, during the early stages of the marquee project, Walsh met with Mark Burr, Hollywood Theater president. Burr gave Walsh a tour of the theater. He could see how passionate Burr was to finish the entire restoration that was stretching into more than a decade.

It resonated with Walsh on a personal level.

"They were proud to share their unique history with an outsider," Walsh said. "He talked about the local family that originally built it, and the reasons they built it. We knew we had to help them achieve their vision. I am proud to have completed a project that meant so much to so many folks."

Since the theater is several decades old, restoration challenges became a laundry list of obstacles. After the marquee was removed and taken to Signs Unlimited, the theater group realized the structure's wood elements were dry-rotted. Repairs would be more costly than the group had planned for.

"In addition, some of the wood framing would conflict with the proposed underside lighting pattern. It was decided to remove all the wood framing and replace it with steel stud framing," Burr said in an email to Digital Signage Today. "The good thing was the metal strutting weighed a few hundred pounds lighter than the old wood framing, however, it had to be re-designed and re-configured to accommodate the proposed underside lighting pattern."

Due to shipping delays from China, light sockets for the marquee didn't arrive on time. The group waited for months only to hear the factory in China might not even make those type of sockets anymore.

Time for another option. Burr said a local businessman who helped pay for the restoration told his employees to call light socket vendors and sign contractors throughout the U.S. to find replacement sockets.

"The message was any amount would help and please check your shelves as even a dozen would help and we would take them all," Burr said. "Slowly but surely, over the spring of 2020 through the spring of 2021, 500 replacement light sockets were acquired."

Another hurdle was finding a proper light controller for the marquee's bubble lights. A controller made in China had been discontinued, so the group looked at a different option which would be more expensive and delivery time was unknown. Eventually, the group lucked out when it discovered a light controller in the U.S. that Burr said is reliable and easy to use.

Just when the project was starting to progress, another roadblock: the marquee's paint. Colors are yellow and red, but the purple dye needed for the red paint was out of stock. Finally, two months later, the red paint arrived. The theater had to pay three times the original price per gallon, but the marquee could be painted, at last.

"It took almost three years to the day to remove, restore and reinstall the refurbished marquee. Thank you to the project team for their perseverance," Burr said. "It was well worth the wait!"

Kevin Damask is the editor of Digital Signage Today. He has more than 15 years of journalism experience, having covered local news for a variety of print and online publications.

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