| AB Breweries |
Baldwinsville,
NY
Cartersville,
GA
Columbus,
OH
Fairfield,
CA
Fort
Collins, CO
Houston,
TX
Jacksonville,
FL
Los
Angeles, CA
Merrimack,
NH
Newark,
NJ
St. Louis,
MO
Williamsburg,
VA |
|
Newark Brewery 50th Anniversary
| “A & Eagle” Sign
Fact Sheet |
 Spectacular neon and
electric signage is a glorious part of the Anheuser-Busch Company’s
past. For more than a century the world’s largest brewer
has had some type of electronic spectacular signage in New York
City’s Times Square, including a neon replica of the famous
Budweiser Clydesdales hitch in the 1950s.
Just over the river in Newark, N.J., where the Anheuser-Busch brewery is
celebrating 50 years of success, a new, rotating sign featuring “flying
eagle” neon animation, is continuing that tradition. It took 30 people
at the Federal Sign Company more than three months to build the 30,000-pound
sign. |
| |
History of
the “A & Eagle” sign
Renowned animator Byron Rabbit was hired to design the first
of the Anheuser-Busch eagle signs in the early 1950s. In
order to create the most authentic replication possible,
a live American bald eagle was rented and let loose in the
66th Street Armory, where it was filmed in flight. Mr. Rabbit
produced the “A & Eagle” sign design from
film stills.
There were six signs originally built in 1953 by Artkraft Strauss Sign
Corporation, the firm responsible for most of the world-renowned neon
signs in Times Square over the past half-century.
Today, besides the Newark brewery sign, the only other operating “A & Eagle” sign
is in the brewery’s hometown, St. Louis, Mo. That sign, installed
in 1962, is visible from Highway 40/ I-64 and was originally located
on Wilshire Blvd. in Los Angeles. The Federal Sign Company maintains
the landmark sign in St. Louis.
The “A & Eagle” trademark has appeared on Anheuser-Busch
packaging since 1872.
|
| |
“A & Eagle” Sign
Stats
|
| Dimensions: |
Round sign, 34 feet
in diameter by 6 feet deep |
| Neon Tubing: |
Approximately 4,500 feet; equivalent
to 15 football fields |
| Weight: |
30,000 pounds or 15 tons; heavier
than the average school bus |
| Illumination: |
Requires 2,000 incandescent lamps
controlled by a solid-state programmable flasher for the animation
at 200 amp electrical services. The “flying eagle” effect
is achieved by flashing the six layers of neon on and off sequentially. |
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