COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - The gallery is vast - rural towns, urban alleys, streets you drive past every day.

There's art down those avenues, said Angie Harris. Some pieces are neon pink; others are streaked with rust or twinkling in the twilight glow, maybe with bowling pins, a headless woman or an advertisement for bingo night.

Harris is talking about vintage signs. The neon red "Big Bear" of the supermarket chain, for instance, was a classic.

"How could you not just admire the signs?" she asked. "They're works of art, and they don't make them like they used to."

Neon and steel signs from the 1940s and '50s come down every year as businesses close and banners fall into disrepair, but Harris and other Ohioans are documenting the signs through photography.

What started as a hobby has morphed into a bit of an obsession fueled by online photo-sharing communities such as Flickr, said Dania Hurley of Reynoldsburg.

Administrative assistant by day, Hurley said she has posted 535 photos of signs in the past two years.

"It's gotten to the point where it's just what I do on the weekend," she said. "We just go out and drive. If we're lucky, we find something and the others go, 'Hey! Where did you find that?'"

Flickr has groups for signs on poles, signs with vintage steel, neon signs, motel signs, ugly signs, funny signs, vandalized signs, CITGO gas station signs, Chinese restaurant signs, highway signs and more.

The popularity of neon and pop-art ads peaked in the 1950s, before cheap plastic alternatives stole the stage and big-box stores started lining the streets with identical golden arches and block-letters spelling out Wal-Mart, said Tod Swormstedt, president and founder of the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati.

Strict rules in suburbia also have swept gaudy chunks of neon from the skies, he said.

City codes in such towns as Dublin and Hilliard promote dignified signs, limiting color choice, size, height and neon use, said Mike Hoy, one of the third-generation owners of the Columbus Sign Co.

However, Hoy said, there's still plenty of vintage craftsmanship in the area to capture with a camera.

Energy-efficient LED lights have cut into neon's territory, but businesses such as Hoy's still mix neon, argon, mercury and phosphates for bright tubes of light when a customer wants the distinct neon look.

A few old signs will be reincarnated in the coming year.

The Columbus Sign Co. is scrubbing and repairing the rusty green-and-white "Lazarus Parking" sign that used to stretch up one side of the Downtown Lazarus building. It ought to be ready for its new home on a downtown city parking garage this summer, Hoy said.

Another Columbus classic is getting a name change. Walgreens has decided to put its own logo in vintage lights on the Frisch's Big Boy sign that has sparkled at the corner of W. Broad Street and Murray Hill Road for about half a century.

People often want to preserve a sign, but they don't have the money, Hoy said. The Lazarus sign - made with outdated materials such as porcelain-coated steel - will cost about three times more to repair than to replace with an aluminum replica.

If an owner abandons a costly sign at the shop, Hoy and his brother Bill add it to the walls of the company lunch room.

Other than the cafeteria, W. Broad Street is one of the best parts of Columbus for a retro-sign tour, Harris said. Areas that have been redeveloped lose their signs unless staunch preservationists are on hand, she said, so fewer gems get thrown away in places where development lags.

East Main Street is another nostalgia trip, with such works as the Silent Woman bar's sign depicting a headless woman. Harris said she finds it funny and feels it reflects an era that predates political correctness.

When signs don't outlive the businesses they advertise, they can point to some of the best businesses in town, she said. ``I've never had pizza at Rubino's in Bexley, but I know it's great pizza.

"If they've been around that long, it must be good."

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Information from: The Columbus Dispatch, http://www.dispatch.com

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AP-CS-01-09-09 1530EST