In 2019, the Neon Museum opened a dedicated campus a few blocks from the Fremont Experience in downtown Las Vegas with a Jetson-style visitor center, its own “Boneyard” with a number of restored and working signs, and the North Gallery, where many other unrestored acquisitions are kept.
2019年，霓虹博物馆(Neon Museum)在离拉斯维加斯市中心弗里蒙特体验中心几个街区远的地方开设了一个专门的园区，里面有一个杰森风格的游客中心，还有一个专属的博物馆，里面有一些修复过的和正在使用的标识，还有北方画廊，那里存放着许多其他未修复的藏品。
Lately ， in the past 20 years or so), a few neon museums have cropped up around the country. To wit: the Museum of Neon Art in Glendale, California; the National Neon Sign Museum that recently opened in The Dalles, Oregon; another along a stretch of old downtown Pueblo, Colorado; and the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, which houses an eclectic collection of vintage neon signs from all over the U.S. Various neighborhoods in New York City, a stretch of the Boston Greenway, Beale Street in Memphis and countless other locales celebrate their iconic neon these days as well.
在过去20年左右的时间里，美国各地涌现出了几家霓虹博物馆——加州格伦代尔的霓虹艺术博物馆，俄勒冈州达拉斯的国家霓虹灯博物馆，科罗拉多州普韦布洛老城区的美国标识博物馆。辛辛那提的美国标识博物馆收藏了来自全美各地的各式各样的老式霓虹灯标识。这些日子，纽约的各个街区、波士顿绿道的一段路、孟菲斯的比尔街以及无数其他地方也在庆祝他们标识性的霓虹灯。
Since the 1920s, when neon was first used for lit signage, it’s come in and out of favor along Main Street, USA. Today it’s come back into favor, at least in certain places – even considering that most electric signs are now lit with LEDs.
自20世纪20年代以来，霓虹灯被用于照明标识，它出现在美国的街道。今天，它又重新流行起来，至少在某些地方是这样——即使现在大多数的标识都是用led灯点亮的。
What Stays in Vegas
拉斯维加斯留下了什么
But in and out of favor never was the case in Las Vegas. When it comes to historical places, Las Vegas is but an infant, but when it comes to legendary neon signs, Las Vegas is where the historic mother lode is. And considering that Thomas Young delivered the first electric sign to a casino in Las Vegas back in the 1940s, the history of neon and the city of Las Vegas as we know it are about the same age.
说到传奇霓虹灯标识，拉斯维加斯就是历史悠久的源泉般的存在。考虑到托马斯·杨在20世纪40年代为拉斯维加斯的一家赌场提供了第一个电子标识，霓虹灯的历史和我们所知的拉斯维加斯差不多是在同一个时代。
It’s just that the city of Las Vegas – as we know it – is all about great big casinos and great big signs out in front of them. And those casinos have never been shy about tossing out the old stuff for something new. The casinos in Las Vegas reinvent themselves on a regular basis. So being a spectacular recognizable icon was never going to be a good enough reason to keep it from being pulled down and replaced with something even bigger and more spectacular.
就像我们所知的拉斯维加斯，到处都是大赌场和大标识。这些赌场从不羞于把旧的东西换成新的东西。就像拉斯维加斯的赌场一直会定期进行自我改造。
The older signs were stored in “boneyards” at major electric sign companies to be raided for spare parts but otherwise left to the elements.
旧的标识被储存在大型电子标识公司的“博物馆”中，以备突击检查或获取备件，但除此之外，其余部分就一直保持原样了。
Those older signs – that in many ways told the relatively short but luminous history of Las Vegas from the 1920s through the 1970s and 1980s – increasingly became in danger of being lost to shredders and other forms of pulverization.
从很多方面来说，这些古老的标识讲述了拉斯维加斯从20世纪20年代到20世纪70年代和80年代相对较短但却光辉灿烂的历史，但它们越来越有可能被毁掉。
The Neon Museum
霓虹灯博物馆
Recognizing this, the Neon Museum was established with a mission to preserve as much as possible the most iconic of the old neon signs that defined Las Vegas for all those decades.
认识到这一点，霓虹灯博物馆成立的使命是尽可能多地保护拉斯维加斯几十年来最具标识性的霓虹灯标识。
At first, the Neon Museum was a collection of public art – neon signs rescued from the back lots of sign companies, refurbished and installed in old downtown Las Vegas.
起初，霓虹灯博物馆是一个公共艺术收藏品集合地，那些霓虹灯标识都是从许多标识公司的后面拯救出来，在拉斯维加斯老城区重新装修和安装。
The Hacienda Hotel’s Horse-and-Rider was the first, installed in 1996 at the intersection of Fremont Street and Las Vegas Blvd. The Silver Slipper and several others soon followed, transforming the downtown area around Fremont Street into a new-old Las Vegas destination.
哈曾达酒店的“马和骑手”标识是第一个，它安装在1996年弗里蒙特街和拉斯维加斯大道的交叉口。“银鞋”标识也很快就跟进了，标识的引进把弗里蒙特街附近的市中心变成了一个新的拉斯维加斯老城区。
Ever since, the museum has been adding and restoring more signs to the collection, with several added in 2018 and the much-anticipated Hard Rock Café guitar sign added in January 2019.
自那以后，博物馆一直在增加和恢复更多的标识，2018年增加了几个，备受期待的硬摇滚咖啡馆吉他标识在2019年1月添加。
Tracey Sprague, the museum’s collections manager, says there have been many groups and companies that have collaborated to get the museum established and operating on a daily basis, and offered a few examples. “We work with the Museum of Gaming History; they currently display items from their collection in our lobby. Boyd Gaming helped pay for a large portion of the removal and transportation of the Stardust pylon to the museum property. We have worked with UNLV in a joint effort to survey the neon left in Las Vegas, both in 2002 and 2016.”
博物馆藏品经理特蕾西·斯普拉格说：“已经有许多团体和公司合作，让博物馆得以建立并开始日常运营。我们与游戏历史博物馆合作;他们目前正在我们的大厅里展示他们收藏的物品。博伊德博彩公司帮助支付了拆除和运送星尘塔标识到博物馆财产的大部分费用。2002年和2016年，我们与拉斯维加斯大学合作，共同调查拉斯维加斯遗留下来的霓虹灯。”
And of course, “A lot of sign companies have helped and contributed to the museum over the years,” says Sprague. “Along with YESCO, Federal Heath, Hartlauer Sign, Vision Sign, High Impact Sign, AdArt, Patrick’s Sign, Paul’s Sign, just to name a few.”
当然，斯普拉格还说:“多年来，很多标识公司都为博物馆提供了帮助和贡献。有YESCO标识、联邦希思标识、哈特劳厄标识、视觉标识、阿达特标识、帕特里克标识、保罗标识等等。”
Ramblin’ Through the Desert
漫步穿过沙漠
In a way, studying the signs in the Neon Museum’s “Boneyard” is like studying a collection of antique cars. Both provide hints about period styles and tastes. You envision sign shop workers building not cars or airplanes to travel great distances; but great big signs, all lit with miles of neon tubing – to be seen from great distances.
在某种程度上，研究霓虹灯博物馆里的标识，就像研究一堆古董车。两者都充满了浓厚的历史感。标识店的工人建造的不是用来长途旅行的汽车或飞机，但巨大的标识是需要用几英里长的霓虹灯管点亮，与飞机一样，标识也能从很远的地方就能看到。
At night, when it’s all lit up, it’s a dazzling trip through neon history, and you get the sensation that overcame so many visitors who arrived out here in the desert in the 1950s and 1960s looking for that excitement they heard about.
到了晚上，当所有的灯光都亮起来的时候，就像一场令人眼花缭乱的霓虹灯之旅，不知不觉有一种在20世纪50年代漫步沙漠的那种愉悦感。
As you walk around and get closer to these signs that were never intended to be seen up close – you see they’ve been painstakingly restored with attention paid to details that otherwise, nobody would ever see.
当你四处走动，走近这些标识时，你会发现，它们经过精心修复，细节精致。
At night, it’s an other-worldly sort of place out in the desert, where mirages collide in the neon light, and you can imagine being in a scene from a 1950s sci-fi flick, where Martians meet up with rugged cowboys…
它是一个超凡脱俗的地方，在那里，海市蜃楼在霓虹灯的照耀下相撞，你可以想象在20世纪50年代的科幻电影中，火星人与粗犷的牛仔相遇……
In case anyone wonders if more iconic signs are planned to be added soon to the collection… “The Neon Museum always has something in th2e works,” Sprague says.
斯普拉格说:“霓虹灯博物馆永远在记录历史。”
