Billion Bubble Baby

[Erik Sine]

Billion bubble baby

By Jeff Daniel

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

02/21/2006

Even those who find lemon-lime soda as delectable as turpentine - my hand is now raised - can't help but admire a bottle that could hold a gazillion ounces of the stuff. Size does matter. Especially when that size is complemented by a retro-cool image.

You've likely figured out the container in question: the giant Vess bottle that stands just north of the Edward Jones Dome. About 600 linear feet of neon covers the 12-foot-tall icon that stands approximately 30 feet high when measured with its pole and platform.

Then there's that familiar white label. The red letters that adorn it spell out not just the lemon-lime flavor and the Vess logo, but also the local brand's alliteration-heavy marketing slogan: Billion Bubble Beverage.

The bottle's nostalgia factor isn't just half-full, it's overflowing.

But all that looking back is now joined by a peer into the future. Already under way is development of an 18.5-acre parcel of land that includes the small patch of ground where the Vess bottle rests.

The residential portion of the project will be known as Gateway Village. A 350,000-square-foot area designated for entertainment will be known as the Bottle District, references to the Vess structure and a large number of bottles unearthed in the former Irish immigrant neighborhood.

The Vess bottle ultimately will be relocated, although where remains somewhat up in the air. Also unknown is whether the faded and on-the-fritz bottle will get the sprucing up it so clearly needs.

"It has always been our hope that it gets restored," said Matt Bernsen, the district's marketing director. "We'd love to move it to the heart of the entertainment district, have it rotating again. That would be great. But it's obviously a brand decision."

That decision will be made by Cott Beverages USA, owner of the Vess brand - and the giant bottle. According to a company spokesman, a final decision on restoration has yet to be made.

"We've been talking with (Cott)," said McGuire Moving & Storage president Dan McGuire. His company owns the land being developed, and McGuire spearheaded the nearly $300 million project.

"We don't have anything set in stone," he said. "But we decided that the bottle needed to stay in the city and stay around the site. So, we are going to incorporate it into the Bottle District."

McGuire said that could include having the bottle "suspended on a building or something."

The Vess bottle hasn't exactly been a sedentary creature. After years in storage, it arrived at its current home in 1991. This came after the St. Louis Board of Alderman adopted a bill that made the bottle a landmark, a move that allowed the inventive piece of outdoor advertising to get around a 1988 billboard ban. Unfortunately, federal highway rules prohibited any revolving of the bottle on its platform because the site is close to Interstate 70.

For roughly 15 years after its creation in 1952 - by the Treesh Neon Sign Co. of East St. Louis - the bottle famously watched over the intersection of Hampton and Gravois avenues, a 24-7 reminder to those waiting at a nearby bus loop to guzzle Vess. Several other giant Vess bottles dotted the city landscape as well, but it is the one at Hampton and Gravois, subsequently mothballed, that remains in the public eye.

We'll have to wait and see whether the tough survivor gets that makeover and a well-deserved spotlight. One admirer who certainly hopes that happens is Erika Nelson, founder of the World's Largest Collection of World's Smallest Versions of World's Largest Things Traveling Roadside Attraction and Museum (whew!).

Nelson passed through our area last spring, stopping to see such sites as the gargantuan Amoco sign off Highway 40 (Interstate 64) and the enormous Brooks Catsup bottle in Collinsville. She was directed to the Vess bottle. Needless to say, she fell in love.

Later, in her Web site diary, she couldn't contain her joy at hearing news that the bottle might be restored and given a place of prominence. And, to top things off, Nelson wrote, the bottle advertised her favorite flavor: lemon lime.

Oh, what some of us wouldn't give for a gigantic bottle of Whistle Orange.

[joemomma]

From the East St. Louis Archive Research Project's Social History Project (1999):

"LIL (TRIBOUT) TREESH is still operating the Treesh Neon Sign at 434 E. Broadway, which is across from the old Broadview Hotel. Lil is working with her daughter, Jackie Treesh, and they are still doing a great job in the general East St. Louis area. Morrie Treesh, the husband and father, has been deceased for a number of years. Lil and Jackie look fine and I had a nice visit with them at my Brother Jack's, along with Frank (Bud) Hauss Jr."

Thanks for this story Sign Guy. I don't know if it'll ever happen, but I've thrown my hat in the ring to bid the restoration. ESL is not that far away, and of all the things in the trade I like to do, restoration of old neon signs tops the list, pigeon poop notwithstanding.