South Broad Street has lost a local landmark: the neon Meglio Furs sign at the Wharton Street intersection.
Passersby spotted that the sign for the long-shuttered business had been partially removed late last week. As of Wednesday afternoon, the script-filled blue-and-red arrow was entirely gone.
It’s unclear why it got taken down, whether it’s slated to return, what’s happened with it, or if there are any impending plans for the empty, covered-up storefront.
Len Davidson, author of the book “Vintage Neon” and the founder of the former Neon Museum of Philadelphia, said the seeming loss of the sign is part of the “general decline in beautiful signs and beautiful storefronts in Philadelphia.”
“Broad Street at one point had been kind of like Philadelphia’s Broadway,” Davidson told Billy Penn. “And there were fabulous signs all through South Broad Street and North Broad Street.”
Some of those Broad Street signs remain, along with other iconic Philly neon lights — but they are few. Some local examples Davidson named include the made-over Boot and Saddle sign, the sign at Termini Bros Bakery, and the Reading Terminal Market sign.
Meglio Furs, which was at a time operated by the late Salvatore Meglio, hasn’t been in business for decades. The storefront was for many years frozen in time, with mannequins and posters displayed in the graffitied windows.
The building was sold in June 2020 to WP Wharton Properties LLC, according to city property records, and people apparently spotted the shop windows being cleared out later that year, OCF Realty wrote on its blog.
The windows were eventually covered up, and the red barrier in front of them has become a free wall, covered with posters.
William Penn Realty — which shares an office address with Wharton Properties and has a sign advertising the commercial space hanging on the side of the building — did not respond to Billy Penn’s questions about the status of the property or its neon sign.
A mid-century mainstay
Meglio Furs was a longtime, family-owned fur and tailoring business that seems to have started operating on that South Philly block in the early 20th century.
It’s not clear, though, exactly how long it was operating out of its final location, per newspaper archives.
According to former operator Salvatore Meglio’s 1968 obituary in The Inquirer, he lived at 1300 S. Broad St. — the corner property that housed the sign until last week — and operated the business a few doors down from there (1310 S. Broad) for 50 years, until his retirement in 1964.
A 1952 item in The Inquirer, however, lists the shop’s address as 1300 S. Broad St.
Either way, the corner storefront at Broad and Wharton (officially, the address is 1400 Wharton St.) hasn’t housed an active business in a long time. OCF Realty’s blog estimated that it closed “some time around Y2K.”
‘Symbol of the neighborhood’
Why do people care about the sign? For many folks, it’s a matter of nostalgia. When Hidden City posted about its apparent removal on Instagram, comments poured in lamenting the loss.
Instagram user @ryguy2609 commented that the unlit neon arrow was “weirdly comforting and mysterious at the same time,” and hoped that it might be saved from ending up in a landfill, even if it’s not kept in that same spot.
Others reminisced about passing by when mannequins filled the windows. Many suggested refurbishing or repurposing the sign, even if there are plans to open a different type of business there.
“I used to live next to this about 13 years ago,” wrote @davemattic. “Sad they took the sign down. Like how do you not incorporate such a cool unique piece like that into whatever future you have for the space?”
The sign, according to neon enthusiast Davidson, was an example of long-lasting porcelain enamel craftsmanship that was popular in the 1950s and 60s, but was very expensive and time-consuming to create. A sign that was simply painted during the same era wouldn’t have been as readable as the Meglio’s sign, he explained.
He agrees it would be nice to see the sign preserved — in place if possible, or somewhere off-site if not.
“Signs become landmarks,” Davidson said. “They become symbols of the neighborhood.”
