Another of Toronto’s neon relics has been removed from its perch.

The Inglis Home Appliances billboard along the Gardiner Expressway was taken down quietly and carted to Orillia last week after nearly 40 years of amusing drivers with inspirational quotes like “Live while you are alive.”

But fans can breathe easy. The sign still lives — for now.

The faces of the Inglis sign have been dismantled but not destroyed, says Pattison Sign Group spokesperson Jacque Duguay. “We understand there’s an iconic aura to this sign, and we’ve gotten a lot of questions about what’s going to happen to it,” Duguay says. “We’re not in a position to destroy the sign yet.”

A combination of factors ended the sign contract with Whirlpool Canada, which acquired Inglis Home Appliances in 1987. In recent years, condo developments in Liberty Village began to eclipse the sign, which many suspect contributed to its demise last week as it became less and less effective as advertising space.

The removal of the Inglis sign marks the loss of another institution of Toronto signage after the Sam the Record Man sign was dismantled by Ryerson University, and news of the sale of Honest Ed’s in Mirvish Village last year sparked fear of its destruction.

As with the Sam sign, some social media users have already called for the Inglis sign to be preserved and erected somewhere as an historical artifact. But that’s a lengthy process that hasn’t begun yet. “There’s no formal discussion or any kind of outreach going on right now,” says Duguay.

Erected in 1975 above the Strachan Ave. manufacturing plant, the Inglis sign was a landmark of the Gardiner commute and will remain a fond memory for many GTAers.

“It’s a funny thing to be sad about a sign coming down off the Gardiner,” says Luca De Franco, 30, but the Inglis sign contributed to his childhood amazement with the big city. Many days he’d stare up at the sign with the Toronto skyline for its backdrop as he drove in from Malton to a Blue Jays or Maple Leafs game with his father in the ’80s and early ’90s.

“The city was a very fascinating thing for me, as a kid growing up in the suburbs,” he says. And the Inglis sign was a part of that. “Amongst all the signs that there are along the Gardiner, that one always stuck out in my memory.”

But for some, the response is “good riddance.”

“It’s funny how people get emotional connections with advertising,” wrote one Internet commenter. “You’re literally defending a bunch of giant lights that are trying to get you to buy something.”

Heidi Kurien, a real estate broker with Re/Max Condos Plus in Liberty Village, says the sign’s removal is good for condo business.

“I think it would help value if those billboard signs weren’t right in front of people’s units,” she says. “It is sad, because it was kind of an iconic symbol. But for people that were actually facing into it from their condo building, it was a little hard for them.” The sign obstructed their view and the neon lights would pour into their condo at night. Kurien feels their pain, she says, as she lives in a nearby condo with Air Canada billboards next to it.

Though the sign may have offered drivers a reprieve from the tedium of Gardiner traffic, the loss of the sign may be a good thing for highway safety. Distracted driving is a priority issue for police in the Toronto and York Region, and many studies have suggested that flashy roadside billboards can contribute to driver distraction. There’s no doubt of the eye-catching pull the Inglis sign had on drivers.

But if you’re dismayed by the latest loss of historic Toronto signage, an online image generator allows users to input text and have their own words of wisdom and wit displayed on a GIF version of the Inglis sign.

Road wisdom

Some of the Inglis sign’s most poignant messages:

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“Yesterday will never come again, but you have today”

“To reach the fruit, one must go out on a limb”

“Do it better the second time around”

“Destiny is not a matter of chance, it’s a matter of choice”

“The greatest remedy for anger is delay”

“No day in which you learn something is a complete loss”