The Lights Fantastic

With a flicker, then a flash, the old Echo Park bowler wound up, released his bowling ball and scattered the pins for the first time in more than 50 years.

Lights danced and the crowd cheered as the figure, part of a whimsical sign atop Jensen’s Recreation Center on Sunset Boulevard, was illuminated Wednesday night after being shrouded in darkness since the 1930s.

In an effort to spruce up the streets and shine a light on the Los Angeles of the past, officials are restoring dozens of old neon signs and incandescent lights around the city.

Echo Park residents said the Jensen sign is a connection to the past and a focus of pride for the community.

“I’ve been looking at that sign for 18 years, wishing someone would light it up,” said Gordon Johnson, 45, who can see the outlines of the bowler from his hilltop home.

“The whole concept of lighting this sign is that it’s an identity point for the community,” said Linda Dishman, executive director of the Los Angeles Conservancy. “This is about relighting and revitalizing the entire neighborhood spirit.”

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Fanciful signs have an allure all their own, enchanting many a passerby who sees the luminous glow against the night sky. For many fans, the gleaming lights signal a rebirth of Los Angeles, the first American city to go neon.

A $15,000 grant from the city’s Cultural Affairs Department helped restore the Jensen sign, one of 56 historic lights slated to be refurbished in the greater Hollywood area. Another 52 lights--including dozens of neon signs along Wilshire Boulevard’s “neon corridor”--have been re-illuminated around Los Angeles in the last few years.

More than 300 people turned out in the balmy evening air Wednesday to watch the Echo Park sign come to life. They ate popcorn and listened to a jazz band, buzzing in anticipation.

As the original builder’s great-grandson approached the large ON switch in the middle of the parking lot, a chant rose in the crowd: “Flip the switch! Flip the switch!”

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With a flourish, the lights went on, the bowling ball rolled and the crowd burst into whoops and hollers. Couples kissed, and some residents wiped away tears.

“This is truly a magical moment in L.A.,” said Adolfo Nodal, general manager of the Cultural Affairs Department. “Today we bring awe back into our lives. Jensen’s Recreation is back, folks!”

Frankie Castelletto smiled and clasped her hands together as the lights of the red and green sign danced across her face. She grew up in Echo Park, where her father bought a house in the 1920s, and remembers watching with delight as the pins tumbled down--a strike every time.

“It was so fun to watch the ball roll,” said Castelletto, who traveled from her retirement home in Oceanside for the ceremony. “This is so exciting. It’s a good neighborhood, and has always been very special to me.”

She remembers her father coming home from the old bowling alley with the wooden pins that split apart during the course of a game. The broken pins made great firewood in their iron stove. “They were hard wood and burned so nicely,” she laughed.

Castelletto was one of the few old-time residents attending Wednesday’s celebration who remembers the sign in its heyday, when it marked a favorite destination of many young Angelenos.

An ornate brick building in the Italian Renaissance style, the recreation center was built in 1924 by developer and brick maker Henry Jensen.

Intended as an athletic club for the elite, the building housed a two-story bowling alley, a billiards parlor and barbershop.

On the roof sat the flashing incandescent sign, one of the first in Los Angeles.

No one seems to know why the lights eventually went dark, although some historians suspect that the sign was turned off when the building was sold during the Great Depression, and then stayed off because of the blackouts during World War II.

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The bowling alley and recreation center disappeared, and the building became home to small shops, grocery stores and apartments.

In the decades that followed, pigeons nested in the sign, and rust partially wore away the structure. Restoring it required checking all 1,300 bulbs, said Ray Neal, the contractor on the project.

The dark sign had not gone unnoticed. Its form puzzled many residents who were jubilant when the lights went on again this week.

“When I moved here 20 years ago, one of the first things I saw was the Jensen sign, and I thought, ‘Wow, that must’ve been one heck of a sign,’ ” said City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who worked with the Cultural Affairs Department on relighting it. “This is a dream come true.”

Many were overwhelmed by the sight of the animated bowler finally flashing in vivid hues.

“It brings a great sense of pride to a neighborhood that really needs it,” said Marsha Perloff, president of the Echo Park Historical Society.

Perloff said she was so emotional about the relighting that she cried all the way to the event. “It’s just so uplifting,” she said. “Everyone has such a sense of childlike excitement about it.”

On Wednesday, dozens of children raced around the festivities gawking at the flashing lights and tugging at helium balloons that floated over the crowd.

“This makes a dramatic difference in our lives,” Goldberg said. “These kids will be able to say they were there that night Jensen’s sign went on.”