Anaheim Icon Will Glow Again
Satellite sign is down, not out..

Orange County Register, June 12, 1998

ANAHEIM — Satellite Shopland's ultra-kitsch satellite sign has been saved from the wrecking ball and hauled to Pasadena to be restored.

The spiky, blinking Sputnik was taken down last month after rotating proudly on a pole in front of the Katella Way strip mall for 30 years, an exemplar of the '50s and '60s outer-space architectural style called Googie.

The satellite was purchased in the nick of time by Daniel Sullivan, owner of Pasadena's Thunder and Neon, which makes and restores signs. Sullivan, who declined to say what he paid, said it took a crane and four men to remove the 600-pound sphere from its perch and load it onto a truck.

"We almost lost it a couple of times," said Sullivan.

So far, his company, at a $2,000 cost, has sandblasted the satellite, removing its unauthentic pastel paint and repainted it in the original colors — white for its globe, silver for its 7-foot spikes. Workers replaced hundreds of burned-out light bulbs.

Sullivan will display the sign June 27 at an art show at 1133 Buena Vista in South Pasadena. When darkness falls, Sullivan will unveil the blazing icon. 

Anaheim, once a world center of Googiness, is systematically de-Googifying itself. By city decree, no signs on poles are allowed near Disneyland.

The satellite was in the path of freeway reconfiguration. 

As Sullivan was loading the orb, some concerned residents stopped to ask about its future.

"It was really, really touching to see people felt such a way about a sign," Sullivan said.