Lynn native brings history to lights

LYNN – It is home of the Chowder King and the World’s Finest Coffee. It features 20 lanes of candlepin bowling and any product you crave, whether it is a Big Mac, Packard or high-class whiskey. Best of all, there are still a few vacancies at the OK Motel.From the outside the Prime Manufacturing Building on Washington Street appears a mere shell of the giant job-supporting factory it was during Lynn’s industrial heyday, but inside the building is overflowing with a bright, eye-catching history.Lynn native and Malden resident David Waller is the owner of the historic downtown building these days, and still rents out two floors for business purposes.A special effects professional by trade, he has been hoarding neon signs since he was a child and keeps a large portion of his collection inside the building’s first-floor warehouse space.”I started collecting signs when I was 9. I found one in a junkyard, riding my bike with my brother and I took it home,” said Waller. “I always thought it was a cool hobby because kids didn’t collect stuff like that, and I had something that was unusual.”Waller’s sign collection is extremely diverse. Some he has found in dumpsters or junkyards, others are given to him by acquaintances or sold off by failing businesses. They are in varying stages of quality, some in great working order, others rusted and in need of serious repair.”The pigeons tend to get in the bottom of them and it kind of rots them out,” Waller says.His inventory features signs from across the country, including the OK Motel from Route 66 in Oklahoma and the Subway Bar in Philadelphia. He has an enormous McDonalds sign from one of the few remaining independently owned franchises in the country and the much-coveted sign that once adorned the “Naked Eye” strip club in Boston.Much of Waller’s collection has a local feel as well. A tour through the warehouse will find the original neon sign from the Lynnway Sports Center and the Daily Item, along with the giant arrow that once served as a beacon for Kappy’s Liquors on Route one in Saugus. He has the star that once sat atop the Blue Star Bar in Saugus and the bright light that attracted clubbers to the now defunct Avalon Nightclub outside Fenway Park.Most of the signs he receives are not in the best of shape, but aside from returning the bulbs to working order, Waller leaves most of the rust and faded paint to keep the sign’s character.”To say I am obsessive is a bit extreme. This place is kind of the ?Land of Misfit Toys’ for neon signs, because most of them have been pulled out of the dump,” he said. “I try to write the story for every sign and keep them in a file. Sometimes the sign is all that is left of something that was wonderful once. When the sign gets lit again, that whole back story comes out again.”One of Waller’s most prized signs was found on top of a trash heap behind Lynn Gas Works, an original neon sign advertising a former Packard dealership in the city.”I like signs that show their age,” Waller said. “I’m not aggressive (when looking for them) I just like the fun part of it.”While neon sign collecting does not have a huge following, Waller says finding signs from car dealerships is the biggest prize among collectors with deep pockets.Although the bulk of his collection lives in the dusty Washington Street warehouse, Waller has made good use of many of his signs. He has several on display at his home, a former firehouse he purchased from the city of Malden 17 years ago, and he rents several local signs to Johnny’s on the Side restaurant in Boston for $1 a year.He has displayed his restored signs at the Museum of National Heritage in Lexington and displays a few others in Providence as well.”It is kind of amazing, I didn’t know how interested people would be,” he said. “I thought it was just something that I like to do, but (having them on display) just convinced me that people really like these old signs.”With sign ordinances overtaking many communities (Waller was thre