11:15 a.m. [Click on image to view larger]

The Paramount Theatre is staging an unusual play over the next few days: the replacement of its 79-year-old sign. (See earlier post.)

Directing the play is the theater's director of operations David Allen, who blamed the pigeons, among other things, for causing irreparable damage to the 62-foot long neon sign.

The change is not quite a replacement but a replication, since the new one is supposed to look exactly the same. "In theory, you're not going to be able to tell the difference," said Steve Rubin, a theater volunteer I talked to this morning. He was helping direct people to the box office, which can only be accessed from inside the building since the cranes are blocking the street.

By the time I was finishing the sketch the workers had successfully detached the "AM" from the side of the sign facing south. As I type this post all of it has come down, but you can get a non-sketchy view of what happened today at the theater's flickr photostream and blog.