Historic Tower Records sign disappeared. Without city’s OK, it’s now in an office
Count Gretchen Steinberg among those not happy about the new location of a historic sign associated with Tower Records.
The sign features two teenagers dancing atop a record. It sat for many years displayed above Tower Cafe, which is at the site of a former drugstore where Tower Records founder Russ Solomon first sold records. The sign came down roughly two years ago and recently resurfaced inside Tower District offices at 1508 Broadway.
Steinberg, a South Land Park resident who is active in local historic causes, said she had interviewed Solomon about two years before his 2018 death and that he had referred to the 1949 sign as “The dancing kids sign.” She has quietly been trying to raise awareness about the sign’s status for more than a year.
“As a historic resource, it’s meant to be a public resource,” said Steinberg, who is no relation to former Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg. “It belongs to all of us, not just a private business group.”
The question now is if the city of Sacramento can compel building ownership to reinstall the original sign or if officials will agree to their plan to install a non-identical replica and let the original remain in Tower District’s offices.
Why the sign came down
The historic sign has been lit up in recent weeks inside the Tower District’s office, which are where Broadway Comics & Cards operated for many years, between Tower Cafe and Sampino’s Kitchen at Joe Marty’s.
The businesses are in the same building as Sacramento’s Tower Theatre, with the movie theater entrance along Land Park Drive and Tower Cafe, the Tower District office and Sampino’s having entrances along Broadway.
Joan Borucki, executive director for the Tower District, said the sign was installed around Thanksgiving in the district’s offices. The installation required the old doors to the office to be removed so the sign could be moved in, with new doors being installed after.
Borucki said that building owner The Endowment Board, which didn’t respond to a request for comment, took down the historic sign after a 4-foot chunk of it fell near people waiting to go into Tower Cafe. She estimated that the removal happened one to two years ago.
Tower Cafe owner Jim Seyman, who opened the business on Earth Day in 1990, said he had no knowledge of the sign falling. He said he was amenable to a replica being installed provided “that it’s operating in the same ways that the original sign did.”
He recalled having spoken extensively with Solomon about Tower’s history.
“Russ was hoping that the sign could be preserved, if not taken over to Tower Records itself,” Seyman said.
Borucki said that after the sign fell, the foundation was going to repair it and “put it back up” but then learned through a sign company that this was not possible.
“The sign cannot be up on the building anymore,” Borucki said. “It weighs 1,600 pounds, for one. And the way that sign was constructed back in the day, there’s no way to go in and make it whole or make it structurally sound again”
“So it needs to be protected,” Borucki said. “If it goes back out into the elements, it’s going to destroy it and nobody wants that.”
The sign was repaired at a cost of more than $50,000, according to Borucki and Jon Gianulias, a member of Tower District’s board. Borucki said a replica sign they are hoping to install in place of the original cost more than $90,000. Her understanding was that these costs are being borne by The Endowmen Board.
She said the sign continues to be owned by the board, which is allowing Tower District to display the sign inside its offices.
“The endowment board wanted to keep the sign connected to the building and they also wanted it to be in a somewhat public place so that people could still enjoy it,” Borucki said.
She hopes to have the office open to the public by early January.
Gianulias, who is developing the Tower Broadway mixed-used residential project where Tower Records and Tower Books were across from the theater, also defended the sign’s relocation.
“We’re all trying to do our best and sometimes things have to change and you have to go with a new, little bit new system,” Gianulias said. “But nobody’s trying to steal a sign or borrow a sign or take a sign without really thinking things through.”
Concern about the sign’s new location
Steinberg is not the only person who would like the historic sign reinstalled.
Neon artist Melissa Uroff had wondered where the original sign had gone. “I think about it when I drive past it regularly, like, ‘Where is that guy?’” Uroff said. “It makes it such a magical neighborhood.”
The most pitched opposition to the historic sign remaining inside the Tower District office and a replica going on the roof could come from the city of Sacramento.
Sacramento Urban Design Manager Bruce Monighan said the city had approved an application to restore the original sign. “Somewhere along the line, there was a decision made to create a replica that we didn’t know anything about,” Monighan said.
Monighan traveled in July 2024 along with Gretchen Steinberg and other city employees to Alpha Architectural Signs, where they looked at the original sign and the replica. During that visit, Monighan said the city’s Preservation Director Sean deCourcy spotted another sign from the Tower Theater building: the original sign for Joe Marty’s.
“They had taken down the Joe Marty sign, brought it in, had a replica made and then put the replica sign up on the outside, all with no permission, all with no understanding of what was going on,” Monighan said.
The replica Joe Marty’s sign remains on-display outside Sampino’s, with Monighan saying the city would like the original reinstalled.
When or if the replica sign related to Tower Records gets installed remains to be seen. Borucki said this was being held up by the city and that one more permit was needed. Monighan said the city that was waiting for information from the applicant.
“What we have said for close to a year now is show us the data that says this has to be waterproof and show us the structural engineering data that says the original sign can’t go back up on the roof,” Monighan said. “We haven’t got that. We get bits and pieces of information, but it’s not really what we want.”
Monighan also noted that the Tower Theatre is on the city’s local historic register, which adheres to national standards that require contributing elements to a site’s historicity to remain in place. “From a preservation standpoint, the original needs to be back on the roof,” Monighan said.
How that happens is unclear, though Monighan didn’t mince words about if the replica Tower Records sign would be allowed to go up.
“Their formal request to use the replica will be denied,” Monighan said. “At that point, there will be a requirement to put the original back up on the sign. How that plays out from a legal standpoint is an unknown situation. But the city has stated, ‘As a historic landmark, you have defaced that landmark and you have to repair it.’”
He added, “In all likelihood, it becomes a code enforcement case after that and then others begin to deal with it.”
This story was originally published December 24, 2025 at 2:39 PM.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the name of building owner.
