Location on Amazon's Denny Triangle campus selected for smaller Pink Elephant sign

A beloved Seattle landmark will soon have a new home on Amazon's South Lake Union campus, just a stone's throw from its original location.

Western Neon filed plans with the city Tuesday to install the smaller Pink Elephant Car Wash sign in the public plaza of Amazon's Nitro office complex on Seventh Avenue, merely two blocks from where the original car wash was located on a triangular property on Battery Street and Denny Way. Record details accessed by the Seattle P-I showed the company is asking for special zoning permissions to ensure the sign is viewed as a work of art and not advertising. 

The plans for public installation come after Auburn-based Elephant Car Wash announced that it would be closing its downtown location in October 2020, citing homelessness, drug activity and the city's "increasing, burdensome regulatory demands." The owner of the lot, Clise Properties, applied for a demolition permit for the 19,000 square-foot property.

The larger of the two signs was donated to the Museum of History and Industry — which also owns other relics of the Emerald City's past including the P-I globe and original Rainier "R" sign — and is also being restored. The owner of the car wash, Bob Haney, later donated the smaller sign to Amazon, and the company said it would display it on their campus.

Before the new sign is installed, Western Neon is restoring the sign to its former glory with new glass, electrical components, internal structure and hardware according to record details.

The project plan shows that the restored sign will be located in a planter on a new decorative base mount and positioned on the northeast corner of Seventh Ave. and Blanchard Street. It is unclear whether the sign will rotate or remain stationary.

The neon signs were built in 1956 by Beatrice Haverfield, dubbed the "Queen of Neon," who also created neon signs for Dick's Drive-In, The Dog House, Cinerama and Ivar's at Pier 54. Coincidentally, the restored sign will sit on the site of the former Dog House, which closed in 1994 after nearly 60 years in business.

In the plans for the new sign, Western Neon wrote that Haverfield was "a visionary who transformed the Seattle urban landscape."

"This one-of-a-kind monumental sculpture was more than a sign as it evoked an entire library of personal design moves. From characteristic script to industrial text, the 'Pink Elephant' was a sublime mix of light, space, time, and commerce spinning above one of the busiest intersections in the city it symbolized — a city always on the way up, glittering against the ocean, mountains, and trees day and night," wrote Western Neon.

The elephant is reportedly one of the most photographed landmarks in the city, appearing in commercials, music videos and movies.

This is also not the first piece of Seattle history that the e-commerce company has bought and displayed to preserve a piece of the city in its pre-tech boom days. The company also owns the King Cat Theater sign, which is housed in their Coral building.