Word On Whalley: Wings Rise; Neon Fades

Six-foot-wide aluminum incarnations of the words ​“WING” and ​“STOP” rested on the Sherman Avenue sidewalk as three seasoned sign-installers scoped out the scene.

The trio — TJ Telesco (above at left), Evan Curtin and Jack Deyo (at right) of New Haven Sign — were preparing Tuesday morning to install the words above the storefront of a new Wingstop fried-chicken franchise at the corner of Sherman and Whalley.

The sign, like all the signs they install nowadays, contains LED lights.

“I’ve been at this long enough to see neon die. It’s all LED. You’d be hard pressed to find any [new] neon outside of Miami. Miami was the greatest thing to happen to neon,” Telesco, a 38-year-old West Havener with 11 years on the sign-installation beat, said during a while-working conversation on the ​“Word on the Street” segment of WNHH FM’s ​“LoveBabz LoveTalk” program. 

LED lights are cheaper than neon and easier to install. They also consume far less electricity to keep running.

Neon also can be more of ​“a pain in the ass to work with,” Telesco said. ​“There’s a sound neon makes that you’ll never forget when it breaks.” That said, Telesco retains an emotional preference for the classic neon. 

The original plan was to open the Wingstop restaurant the week before the Super Bowl, according to Patrick Oyama (pictured) of Ridge Construction, who has supervised the build-out. ​“We were ahead of schedule,” he said, but Southern Connecticut Gas ​“dragged their feet.” Now he expects the spot to open to the public in three weeks.

New Haven Sign’s crew arrived for one of the last tasks: affixing the two-part 12-foot-wide logo first on the Sherman sign of the corner storefront, then Whalley. Deyo measured the letters …

… and climbed a ladder to measure the second-story metal-coated plywood spot to make sure the sign would fit. Then he drilled a hole.

Back on earth, Telesco and Curtin removed the back bracket from the two verbal ​“raceways.” They needed to make sure the wires would be connected right.

“We have two separate power supplies. One to power these outside lights to give it a halo. One to give it the inside light, which is going to brighten it white. We have to figure out where the second feed is going or if it’s going to be daisy-chained to one continuous feed,” Telesco said (in above video).

Next the crew would screw the brackets back onto the two raceways, then connect them to the building.

The workers are familiar with the Whalley-Sherman corner. They installed the New Haven Bank sign across the street to the north as well as the McDonald’s a block away.

“We do pretty much all the McDonald’s around here,” said Curtin (pictured), a musician who performs in local clubs like the State House and Toad’s under the name Evander Blue. (“This is my day job,” he said.)

The work promised to go faster Tuesday than it did the day before, when the workers traveled to Poughkeepsie, N.Y. starting at 5:30 a.m. to put finishing touches on a McDonald’s. They finished at 7:05 p.m. They spent two days recently on installing signs at the New Haven’s Ferry Street Mickey D’s. Some jobs can stretch out if, for instance, they encounter unforeseen problems, like an eight-inch-by-eight-inch space reserved for a 12-inch sign.

“The part that stinks,” said Telesco, who lives in West Haven, ​“is like when everybody’s on site. You got the glass guys. You got the concrete guys. You got the asphalt guys. We were down in Jersey in Fort Lee doing a job. The paving guy was getting real lippy. I said, ​‘Look, dude, we were here before you guys. All we need is 20 minutes.’ He’s like, ​‘I’ve got about 60 grand of concrete cooling in this truck.’ I said, ​‘If you stop arguing with me, we’ll get this done a lot faster.” 

Tuesday morning the three sign installers were the only work crew on site, which enabled the crew to work undisturbed. By 2:30 p.m., the Sherman Avenue sign was up, the Whalley Avenue version underway. That second side presented unexpected problems: the awning and security camera were in the way. The crew planned to remain until after dark to finish the job.

“It’s a great job. It’s phenomenal. You get to be outside all day long,” Telesco said. He did acknowledge that he’s glad to be off on Friday, when the weather is expected to sink into the single digits.

The workers’ favorite jobs are at locally-owned businesses like Pistachio Cafe, where they just recently put up the sign for the second location, on Chapel Street.

“It does you little a better when someone local says I’m opening up this place. I want you guys to make the sign,’” Telesco said. ​“You drive by: ​‘I put that up!’ That’s cool.”

He does plan to drive by Wingstop again as well: ​“I’m trying to get me some of these wings!” 

You can watch the full conversation with the New Haven Sign crew on the ​“Word on the Street” segment of WNHHFM’s ​“LoveBabz LoveTalk” program in the video above. 

Click here to subscribe to WNHH FM’s​“LoveBabz LoveTalk” and here to subscribe to other WNHH programs.

Click here and see below for previous ​“Word on the Street” episodes and write-ups.

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