Good riddance to Coke sign

Andrew Woodhouse,

“THINGS go better with Coke” ™ was their jingle.

And locals hope this motto applies to the homeless and less well-off in our area now the Kings Cross Coca Cola sign has been sold off, with proceeds going to charity.

The original sign was a 1960s smaller sign on a nearby building.  A colourful large mural by an unusually-sounding “Ellis D Fogg” was in place shortly thereafter when the old building was demolished and a new one constructed. It featured groovy, hip 1970s motifs with psychodelic swirls and what appeared to be a popping champagne bottle and what the artist called “nonsense writing”. The artist himself may have enjoyed a few sips himself during well-deserved rest breaks.

Its message seemed to be that “This is the place to party”.

The artist, Mr. Fogg, whose real name is Roger Foley, would be pleased his mural is not erased from memory. It sits silently behind the Coke sign, or does it? No-one knows.

Mr Foley says he was commissioned in 1973 to paint images of moving liquids pouring from a tipped bottle onto the wall. “It wasn’t a Coke advertisement at that point,” he said. “I got the impression it was designed to entice someone like Coke to consider using the space for an ad.” The ploy worked. A 42.5 metre-wide Coca Cola sign was installed within 12 months.

So a second, later Coke sign, the one recently in place, was installed and an even larger — much larger — sign was proposed for the Sydney 2000 Olympics. Coke was a sponsoring partner. South Sydney Council rejected this proposal as too big. Nevertheless, a second sign the same size was approved, doubling exposure. For the myopic, this was a relief. Less is not more when it comes to advertisements for global corporations.

After 23 years, however, the 1970s sign showed signs of wear and tear.

A recently-approved City of Sydney Council DA for “maintenance”, approved using behind-closed-doors delegated authority, was contentious.

Now the sign has been dismantled, read demolished, questions are being raised about any possible DA breaches. Whether the recipients of the e-bay action are better off is not a determining factor in assessing non-compliance matters.

Meanwhile, local residents, whose bedtime activities and pillow talk are disturbed and who suffered retina strain from light spill bright enough to light Mascot Airport’s runaway one, were pleased it was off for six months.

Yep, in this city big money and big media manipulation talk, sorry shout, influence.

It is commonly accepted such an icon must, a priori, be heritage-listed. It’s big enough.

However, neither is correct.

What is an icon? My dictionary defines an icon as a religious image which is worshipped.

Think cute 17th century Russian icon oil paintings in gold frames with burnished numina over the Maddona holding the baby Jesus. This hardly compares with a plastic sign some say is just a piece of big, brash, bold, crass commercialism whose product is a cheap, sugar-laden, fizzy, pop drink keeping dentists’ children in private schools and paying for that second, Audi TT run-about and expensive first-class, butler-serviced, overseas holidays, sorry conferences, in Bermuda, Paris and Prague or on a private, sun-soaked Greek Island.

No, it’s not an icon, unless you genuflect and worship Coke (the drink not the drug) at this high altar in that cathedral of drugs, on-street crime, drunkenness and vortex of vice known as Kings Cross.

Nor is it heritage-listed. Heritage is only about one thing, significance. The sign didn’t have any known historical, social, technical, indigenous, archaeological or architectural significance. By comparison, it lacks the significance of the 1958 Sharpies House sign in Elizabeth Street, one of the first Australian uses of neon to create a moving image: a golf ball “soars” into the air for a hole-in-one.

And now the Coke sign is dismantled, read hacked off and demolished, you can’t heritage-list an item which no longer exists. The issue is otiose.

With Coca-Cola world-wide suffering an economic downturn and its shares plummeting, this latest gift to the disadvantaged is a public relations fillip. The media exposure it has created would have cost millions. It has enhanced their caring community image, given some hope to forlorn and distracts others from any silly DA non-compliance nonsense. After all, in the world of PR, image is god.

It’s my shout so let’s all have a Bacardi and Coke and drink to that. Cheers.

A techno-groovy Kings Cross 1974 mural by “Ellis Fogg” with artistic items indicated, including “nonsense writing.”

Andrew Woodhouse is the President Potts Point and Kings Cross Heritage & Residents’ Society