HONG KONG — For nearly four decades, a giant neon cow suspended above a steakhouse in Hong Kong’s Western District was a neighborhood landmark. It was where, if you were giving directions, you told someone to get off the bus or to take the next left. A glowing bovine beacon nearly 10 feet long and 8 feet tall, cantilevered over the street, you couldn’t miss it.

It was supposed to be an Angus, said Iry Yip, the manager of Sammy’s Kitchen. The sign was designed in 1978 by her father, Sammy Yip, the restaurant’s founder, who at 84 still sits behind the cash register.

But the sign maker decided that longer legs would look better, hence the world’s only known long-legged, bluish-white Angus, with “Sammy’s Kitchen Ltd.” emblazoned across its flank in green in English and in red in Chinese.

But in 2011, the city’s Buildings Department decided the sign was unsafe and ordered it removed. After an unsuccessful campaign to save it, the sign came down in August.