Sign from first Tower Records comes down

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  Randy Pench/rpench@sacbee.com

  Sign hanger Ken Jorgenson aids in the removal of the 30-foot neon sign above the Tower Records store on Watt Avenue Wednesday morning.

Tower sign come down video

Bee staff

Published: Thursday, Mar. 12, 2009 - 9:43 am
Last Modified: Thursday, Mar. 12, 2009 - 11:21 am

Tower Records founder Russ Solomon was on hand as the 30-foot neon sign above the first Tower Records store on Watt Avenue came down this morning. The sign will be donated to the Sacramento History Museum and eventually will hang in a rock 'n roll exhibit at the museum.

The iconic site, across El Camino Avenue from Country Club Plaza, is where Solomon opened his first free-standing music store in 1960, the so-called Tower North. It launched an empire that by the mid-1990s included more than 200 locations worldwide, from New York to London to Tokyo.

Eventually West Sacramento-based Tower Records collapsed, mired in debt and buried by competition. The Watt Avenue store closed three days before Christmas in 2006.