Save the 76 Ball - historic preservation

We Won!

kim — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 11:25:12 -0800

Nearly one year after we launched our campaign asking ConocoPhillips to reconsider their "destroy all balls" policy towards the historic blue and orange Union 76 Ball gas station signs, the Texas energy giant announced to the Wall Street Journal that they have changed their course. Focus groups held last fall told them what nearly 3000 signers of the Save the 76 Ball petition have already told us: people love the 76 Balls, and don't want them to disappear.

The 76 Balls that come off their poles are no longer being smashed or cut into pieces, but being preserved for donation to museums like the American Sign Museum, Petersen Automotive Museum, NASCAR Hall of Fame, Museum of Neon Art and perhaps even the Smithsonian! And a new type of 76 Ball, colored red rather than orange, will soon be installed at up to 100 gas stations in the west.

But there are still good reasons for signing our petition. We believe that a select few historically and architecturally significant orange 76 Balls should remain where they have always glowed and spun, like at William Pereira's modernist 76 station in Beverly Hills, one of the spheres along Highway One in Malibu, and the station in Marysville, WA where 76 Ball designer Ray Pedersen buys his gas. Also, ConocoPhillips has declared that no private individuals will be able to get a 76 Ball, which will be a disappointment to our campaign's supporter Michael Madsen. We respectfully ask that ConocoPhillips reconsider this policy, and present one 76 Ball to the individual who conceived, designed and hand-painted the first 76 Ball for the 1962 Seattle World's Fair: Ray Pedersen.

And most importantly, we ask that ConocoPhillips commit to pay all costs associated with crating and shipping donated 76 Balls to the selected museums, thus enjoying greater tax benefits and sparing these institutions from having to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars out of their limited budgets in order to receive the gift of the 76 Ball.

Our heartfelt thanks to everyone who has supported this campaign through 2006 and into 2007. This is inspiring proof that citizens have the power to reach large corporations and inspire positive change.

LA CityBeat article: Americana- Saving Ray's Balls

kim — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 10:07:53 -0800

[Americana] Saving Ray's Balls

We've all experienced it: a late night when you've run out of gas or are in desperate need of a bag of Funyons. Just when you've given up, out of the unforgiving void emerges a beacon of hope in the form of a floating orange and navy orb. Such is the magic of the 76 ball, the electric signage of what were once known as Union 76 gas stations, a glowing (literally) example of effective branding for nearly half a century. That is, until ConocoPhilips acquired California Unocal in 2002 and instituted a plan to replace the balls beginning in 2005, enacting a "destroy all balls" policy for the felled orange giants.

Enter Kim Cooper. The Los Angeles-based cultural historian's quest to save the eight-foot, 400-pound balls took shape when her local 76 station's ball disappeared, only to be replaced by a flattened disc with a red background instead of the familiar orange. "I didn't know at first exactly why I was so upset when they got rid of the ball in my neighborhood," Cooper says, but as the campaign grew, she found that the 76 ball held a special place in the collective memory of West Coast natives. "Several families have told me that it was their child's first word; that every time they drove past a 76 station their child would say 'ball' and it became this special family memory."

Cooper began the fight to save this icon of the American West from her living room with the site Savethe76ball.com, eventually bringing on her partner from the 1947 Project historical crime blog, Nathan Maransk. Together, the two amassed almost 3,000 signatures in an online petition that demanded ConocoPhillips save some of the balls to be put on display in museums. As a result of their efforts and the extensive media coverage thereof, the Texas-based oil conglomerate recently announced that it will donate several of the balls to museums across the country.

Although thrilled with their success, Cooper says the battle for the fate of the balls is not yet over. The Save the 76 Ball Project is also asking that a few select, historically significant balls be preserved at their original locations, that ConocoPhillips foot the bill for transporting the unwieldy orbs, and that a ball be given to the original designer, Ray Pederson, who built and hand-painted the first ball himself for the Seattle World's Fair of 1962.

-Ayse Arf, from LA CityBeat

Seattle P-I article: A roadside icon, the 76 ball, comes 'round again

kim — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 09:11:57 -0800

Photo by Scott Eklund / Seattle P-I

A Save the 76 Ball campaign aims to preserve the former gas station mainstay, designed by Ray Pedersen. Pedersen, who lives in Bellingham, first displayed his creation at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair. Pedersen gases up at this station in Tulalip, coincidentally one of the last gas stations in the U.S. with one of the icons.

A roadside icon, the 76 ball, comes 'round again
Fans save Ballard High grad's vanishing slice of Americana

By CASEY MCNERTHNEY
P-I REPORTER

Stopped at a traffic light two blocks from her Los Angeles home, Kim Cooper stared at the 76 gas station she has driven past hundreds of times and tried to figured out what was wrong.

Then she got a terrible, unsettled feeling.

"I'd always remembered seeing a big, beautiful 76 ball," she said of the '60s-era rotating sign that had illuminated gas pumps across the West Coast and at her neighborhood gas station.

"And they had replaced it with this flat sign and a color that looked like a slab of raw liver."

A Web search informed her that the balls had begun to come down three years earlier, in 2003, a few years after Unocal sold the brand to Tosco Corp., which then became part of ConocoPhillips.

Color experts hired by the company said the orange balls didn't fit with the company's bright red and white designs.

Cooper never met Ray Pedersen -- the Ballard High School graduate who designed the orange 76 ball and debuted it at the 1962 Seattle World's Fair -- but that day launched a Web campaign to save a slice of Americana that was quickly vanishing from the nation's landscape.

Cooper's online petition has attracted about 3,000 signatures and recently persuaded ConocoPhillips to change course -- installing about 75 newly painted red balls in high-traffic locations in California and saving about 30 of the old orange ones for museums.

Even the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History is considering adding a 76 ball to its collection, a spokeswoman said.

"I got a call about that, and I said, 'You've got to be kidding,' " said Pedersen, a 1944 Ballard High School grad. "But it's been out there for 45 years, and it's become part of the American psyche. It's an icon, right?"

Pedersen, 80, studied business at the University of Washington, and in 1954 was hired by Young & Rubicam, a Los Angeles company that designed Union Oil's advertising.

Union Oil's circular orange logo with blue letters had been used for more than a decade when Pedersen was hired, and the company wanted to establish itself as the gasoline leader in Los Angeles, which is still North America's largest gas market.

In late 1961, after Pedersen designed several successful print and TV ads, his boss sent him to Seattle with an assignment to create advertising for the 1962 World's Fair Skyride, sponsored by Union Oil.

The Skyride, now used at the Puyallup Fair, traveled from the northeast corner of the fairgrounds to a second kiosk 1,400 feet across.

Pedersen's boss expected typical, square signs near the boarding kiosks. "But those flat lollypop signs were boring," said Pedersen, who awoke one night with a vision.

Pedersen knew hundreds of people would be waiting in line and wanted a sign they could see from all angles. He designed murals, showing people where they could go with Union Oil and complementing the ride's brilliant reds. But he needed something that would stick in people's memory.

"You know how you wake up in the middle of the night?" asked Pedersen, who lives in Bellingham. "It was like that -- and I had this idea of a big ball."

When a Union Oil senior vice president saw the 8-foot globe installed a few days later, he said it was the best sign he'd ever seen.

"We've got to put one of these on every station we own," Pedersen recalled him saying, adding that the vice president, who later became CEO, initially ordered about 3,000 balls for stations in 13 Western states. It's been reported that the numbers peaked in 1969, when more than 18,000 gas stations in 37 states had 76 balls.

Pedersen, who handled the Union Oil account for 12 years, said it seemed natural to follow the station balls' success with replica antenna toppers.

Millions of the toppers traveled the world and spawned dozens of competitors. Kim Koga, executive director and curator of the Museum of Neon Art in Los Angeles, remembers one on her family's Volkswagen Squareback in the late '60s. She also remembered the unique artistic value of the illuminated, rotating station balls.

"It was kind of minimalist in shape and the writing and the color," she said. "It shouts '60s orange and was such a popular part of the American landscape, we had to save one."

But it wasn't easy. Letters and e-mails went unanswered by ConocoPhillips, which didn't want to discredit its trademark and brand by distributing the old balls.

Koga tried for months to track down a ball -- even contacting a Los Angeles company she knew had helped take them down. Finally, last week, after months of discussions with ConocoPhillips, the company said the museum could own one.

"We were pleasantly surprised that we had underestimated the affection that people have for the orange 76 ball, so we decided it would be a good thing to set aside about 30 vintage orange balls so they could be viewed in public arenas such as museums," ConocoPhillips spokesman Phil Blackburn said.

The Museum of History and Industry in Seattle received an e-mail from ConocoPhillips asking if it was interested in acquiring a 76 ball, spokeswoman Mercedes Lawry said. Museum officials thought it was an interesting artifact, but didn't see how it would fit with its mission, she said.

After finding out that a local man had designed it for the World's Fair, Lawry said the museum might reconsider its assessment.

The switch to more modern red and white designs came after surveys showed that customers preferred well-lit, bright gas stations, Blackburn said. While ConocoPhillips plans to install new red 76 balls at California stations, no plans for new balls in Washington have been made, he said.

And the orange balls continue to come down.

Cooper, an author and cultural historian, knew of only one 76 ball that remained in Western Washington -- at a station in Tulalip off Interstate 5's Exit 199, coincidentally where Pedersen buys his gas.

However, the ball has been painted red, and neither a station employee nor Blackburn knew when the change occurred.

"Orange is a color you can own, and Union Oil did," Pedersen said, standing under the sign this week. "That's probably why they picked it in the beginning. For years, when people saw orange they thought of Union Oil.

"Now it's gone to a liver red that is almost like McDonald's. They're making a huge mistake."

Cooper said it would also be a mistake not to save one of the balls for Pedersen -- the Seattle native who designed the icon of American motor culture.

Blackburn said the balls are "absolutely not for sale," despite dozens of requests from collectors, including "Reservoir Dogs" star Michael Madsen.

"It is important that the brand be protected," Blackburn said.

"Though there may be a historical case to be made to consider an individual collector if the circumstances and criteria can all be worked out to mutual satisfaction."

Where Pedersen might put it? That's still in question.

"I live in a community with a bunch of Republicans that have their flags up," said Pedersen, a self-proclaimed liberal veteran.

"I said if I get a ball, I'll put that up on a pole, see what they think about it."

ABOUT THE 76 BALL

Debut: 1962 Seattle World's Fair (opened April 21, 1962)

Size: The first sphere was 8 feet, Pedersen said.

Weight: 400 pounds

Where it was: In 1969, more than 18,000 stations reportedly had 76 balls. Dodger Stadium also had a 76 ball, and the gas station sign spawned millions of replica antenna toppers.

Price of regular gas in 1962: 31 cents a gallon

Price of regular gas in 2007: $2.59 a gallon

More online: Visit savethe76ball.com

P-I reporter Casey McNerthney can be reached at 206-448-8220 or caseymcnerthney@seattlepi.com.

Sign the Petition

kim — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 20:37:03 -0800

To sign this petition, click here.

To: ConocoPhillips

We, the undersigned, as consumers with an abiding fondness for the striking, historic and uniquely Californian blue and orange ball-shaped Union 76 logo, be it on tall metal poles or car antennae (since 1967), hereby call on ConocoPhillips to reconsider their alteration of the 115-year-old brand, to cease replacing spherical blue and orange 76 balls at gas stations with flattened blue and red disks, and to restore the beloved spheres to the poles where they belong. If ConocoPhillips does not demonstrate greater respect for the the history and goodwill associated with the blue and orange 76 ball, we will be taking our business to other gas sellers.

This petition is being launched on January 31, six days after ConocoPhillips posted fourth quarterly earnings of $3.7 Billion, and we call for a sincere response to our concerns before the announcement of their next second quarterly earnings.

Sincerely,

The Undersigned