Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, August 25, 1995 TAG: 9508250086
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JEFF STURGEON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A national debt clock has tallied its last billion dollars of red ink on a Roanoke rooftop, in part because there's no money to pay the monthly electric bill.
A crane will remove the lighted sign from atop a restaurant at the most prominent downtown intersection next week.
If only lowering the real debt could be so easy.
George Cartledge Sr. and the late John W. Hancock, longtime civic leaders, paid for the sign in the fall of 1993. It kept a running tally of what the federal government owes its bondholders, an amount approaching $5 trillion. The sign also reported "YOUR SHARE," which recently exceeded $18,500. It is like a debt clock in New York City.
Tourists stopped and stared as the digits turned over, each spinning a bit faster than the one to its left. Other towns called and asked how to get one. Local people were divided over the wisdom of the display, which was described in a letter to this newspaper as a painful symbol that has no place in public view.
"It served its purpose well," said T.L. Plunkett Jr., a Roanoke lawyer who is co-executor of Hancock's estate.
But Plunkett said there will be no source of money to pay for electricity for the sign after Hancock's estate is settled within the next month. Hancock, the founder of Roanoke Electric Steel Corp., died March 3, 1994. Plunkett said he made the decision to unplug it with one or more other executors, whom he declined to identify.
Cartledge, founder of Grand Piano and Furniture Co., said he was not consulted on the sign's removal.
While some loathed the clock, the beacon had its followers.
Restaurateur Roland "Spanky" Macher, who owns the building on which the sign sits, said Thursday he will pay to power the clock if somebody buys it. Macher wants it to stay.
"People look at it all the time," he said. "It's going to be a major loss to the [City] Market."
Macher said that for some time he has been fronting the cost of the electricity for the clock, which is included in the power bill for the Star City Diner restaurant building he bought in October. He said he received his first payment from the Hancock estate only a few weeks ago.
In his bid to save the sign, he said, he tried to buy it but was rebuffed.
The clock is worth $3,000 to $4,000, said Neal Kinsey, co-owner of Kinsey Crane & Sign Co. in Roanoke, which is handling its removal.
"The owners would like to find a buyer for it if that is possible," Kinsey said, but not for use at the same location.
Plunkett hinted at why he is opposed to keeping the sign where it is. Three statues that Macher put on the rooftop, including one of a punked-up Big Boy, "detract" from the sign, he said.
In the opinion of a top tourist official, the sign doesn't draw visitors to the City Market, but probably doesn't keep them away either.
"I personally think it's kind of depressing," said Martha Mackey, executive director of Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau. "We have never had anyone come into the visitor center and say, `What a great sign.'''
by CNB