Fresno’s most uplifting local story of 2024: Iconic ‘G’ sign refuses to budge | Opinion

Since 1965, the iconic “G” sign perched atop the downtown Fresno skyline has stood for Guarantee Savings.

Today, and for a little while longer at least, the “G” stands for something else.

Gravity.

In what surely qualifies as the most uplifting local story of 2024 so far, the “G” sign refused to be hoisted Saturday. Eleven-thousand pounds of metal opted to remain right where it is, rather than succumb to anyone else’s best-laid plans.

Hooray for inertia!

Opinion

When the State Center Community College District purchased the 12-story Guarantee Savings building in 2018 for its new headquarters, the impetus was to create room on the Fresno City College campus for a new math and science building.

Now Isaac Newton is getting the last laugh. As anyone who paid attention in physics class knows, a body at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force.

In this particular case, the outside force (aka a crane installed on the flatbed of a semi truck) wasn’t up to the task. Turns out engineers severely underestimated the sign’s weight. Besides that, according to SCCCD public information officer Jill Wagner, an unforeseen problem with the sign’s support post prevented it from being lifted safely during repeated attempts.

“Without the drawings to the building sign we weren’t able to figure out why it’s sticking,” Wagner said, “but there’s some technical difficulties and we’ll come back in the next month or so and try again.”

Newton just chuckled again. This piece of Fresno rooftop history isn’t coming down without a fight. Nor should it.

As a late ’90s transplant, I wasn’t around during the sign’s spinning, color-changing heyday as a weather beacon. But I do remember when power was restored in 2003 and seeing the 15-foot-tall “G” lit up in white.

“What a pleasure it was to see one of the ‘grand ladies’ of downtown once again wearing her shining crown,” penned a Bee letter writer at the time.

Replicas replace originals

By the time SCCCD moved in, the “G” had been dark for years. Officials originally hoped to restore the sign, going so far as to consult with a structural engineer, an architect and the original installer, before determining it was too far gone and susceptible to toppling in heavy winds.

In consultation with the city’s Historic Preservation Committee, the district came up with a plan to remove the original sign and replace it (probably sometime in 2025) with a digital replica with LED lighting that complies with current structural design codes.

Once the “G” sign is removed and replaced – let’s assume the engineers get it right next time – it’ll be the second replica employed as the solution for a piece of local architectural history associated with Guarantee Savings, a Fresno-based institution founded in 1919 and absorbed in a 1987 merger.

The first? A replica abacus statue installed last summer on the exterior wall of a former branch at Blackstone and Ashlan avenues (now Citibank) following the unauthorized removal of the original in 2021.

In Fresno, we can’t seem to preserve our historical artifacts anywhere except the vintage sign graveyard at the fairgrounds. But now, instead of getting disposed of and lost for good, the originals are being replaced with modern versions.

Guess that qualifies as progress, even though it’s no less sad.

Which is why I got a large kick out of hearing the giant “G” sign will remain part of our skyline for a little while longer, even though its days are numbered.

“Today we learned that the G atop our building stood for grit,” Wagner said after Saturday’s failed lift.

Clever, but there’s an even more germane “G” word at work here.

Gravity. For one day, at least, Fresno history refused to budge.