ITHACA -- The Johnny's Big Red Grill sign -- an icon of Collegetown for more than 50 years -- has found a new home in an Ohio sign museum.

The two-story neon sign, composed of a giant "J" and a friendly version of Cornell University's Big Red Bear, was attached to the building at 202-204 Dryden Road in 1949 at a cost of $4,700, according to Journal archives. That's more than $42,000 in today's dollars.

"It had been part of a lot of Cornellians' history," said Alderwoman Mary Tomlan, D-3rd, a Cornell alumna and architectural historian. "When Johnny's advertised in the Cornellian in the 1950s, the main part of their ad was a line drawing of the sign, so the sign became synonymous with the place."

The city designated the sign an historic landmark in 1980, according to Journal archives, but the city's fire and building departments decided this spring that the sign was no longer structurally safe and had to come down, according to Tomlan and City Historic Preservation Planner Leslie Chatterton.

The building's owner, Jason Fane, decided to auction the sign on eBay in July, where it was spotted by Carolyn Coplan, a 1976 Cornell graduate. On a whim, Coplan placed a bid, thinking she could give the sign to her husband for his birthday, and they could hang it in their front foyer.

On eBay, bidders were encouraged to "own a piece of Collegetown lore." The sign was described as the "Mother of all Neon signs," and Coplan won with a bid for $1,080.

"And then I started reading the details. And it said it was 21-feet high and it weighs 2,000 pounds. So then I started thinking, 'Oh no,'" Coplan said, laughing.

She and her husband, Neil Coplan, decided the best way to preserve the sign would be to donate it to Cornell. They contacted people at the Johnson Museum, archives, the alumni office and the development office.

"They were very excited, but nobody has the money, it seems, to move it, to store it, to renovate it," she said, estimating the cost would be "probably minimum $15,000."

After finding no luck at Cornell, Coplan contacted roughly 30 other people and organizations in Ithaca, including the City of Ithaca, Historic Ithaca, and the History Center. But no one had the money to restore and display the sign locally.

Finally, Coplan began looking online and discovered several sign museums -- "they call it roadside architecture," she said -- in particular the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati.

She e-mailed museum founder Tod Swormstedt and "he immediately e-mailed me back, 'We would love the sign.'"

Swormstedt said his father graduated from Cornell in 1951 and his family has been in the sign business since 1906. He launched the not-for-profit museum in 2005, but has quickly outgrown his current space, he said.

He's working now to renovate a former parachute factory in Cincinnati with 20,000 square feet and 28-foot ceilings, where the Johnny's sign can be displayed standing up, he said.

"Oftentimes, the sign of a local business is an icon," Swormstedt said. "It was a famous watering hole for students there for 50-plus years and once it's gone, it's gone -- but now it's not. The memory of it is preserved in a museum."

The neon in the Johnny's sign will be replaced, but Swormstedt said he doesn't re-paint.

"Peeling paint or faded paint is part of the story of that sign," he said.

Cornellians and Ithacans who want to see the Johnny's sign on display will have to wait until renovations are done on the new building, likely by 2012, he said.