The King's new home

To find the King, make your way through the cold warehouse. Past the salvaged church finials and stained-glass windows. Past the splintering display case from Harry's Occult Shop, empty now of hocus-pocus potions, but still bearing the whiff of incense. Past the bell tower clock faces and the dressmaker's mannequin, and the fireplace mantels from the Divine Lorraine.

And there sits the King of Jeans, his crown now resting in an alcove of reclaimed barn wood under the steady stares of two stuffed antelope heads.

The salvaged pickings found inside Provenance Companies in Northern Liberties can be had at a price, urban trappings to be repurposed and rewoven into a changing Philadelphia. A business, sure, but also a way of imparting of the imprint of a bygone Philadelphia onto the soul of a new one.

Tastykake cooking drums become planters. Granite from Independence Mall becomes a counter top. A Deacon's Chair from a long-shuttered church completes a dining set.

But the iconic King of Jeans sign, which hung for two decades in its garish, suggestive glory above East Passyunk Crossing, is alone among the takings. The towering shirtless jeans-wearing King and his squatting Queen in hot pants and heels are not for sale. They will remain. And really, what else, could they become?

The King arrived at Provenance in pieces over the last two weeks thanks to a yearlong effort to save the sign by the East Passyunk Crossing Civic Association and Rockland Capital, the developers, who plan to turn the former clothing store into apartment and retail space.

The Philadelphia History Museum wanted it. Someone there called it "a 20th-century landmark." Indeed, the sign's kitsch helped inspire an album title - King of Jeans by the punk band Pissed Jeans - and a short story, "King of Naps," by local writer and founder of the website Philebrity, Joey Sweeney.

More simply, it caused anybody who ever saw to look up and say, "Oh, my God, you got to be kidding me."

It was part of East Passyunk.

When it became clear the sign was too large for the museum, the group and the developer turned to Provenance. Would they take it? And not sell it? Put it on display?

This was new territory for the salvage company. Despite having dismantled churches and plumbed too many historic Philadelphia buildings to count, no one ever asked them not to sell something, said the owners, Scott Lash and Chris Donna.

But this is Philadelphia - and these are the things we keep.

It's tacky. It's almost obscene. It's weird.

In short, "it's authentic," Donna said.

The crew from Provenance took the lettering first. They set them up in the wooden alcove, under the animal heads. In the middle, they set some chalices and a brass eagle down on an old factory table. Add a Barcalounger, and it could be some bizarrely awesome South Philadelphia rowhouse basement.

The next day, people started coming by the warehouse to see it. To take pictures. To pose, like the King and Queen.

The King and Queen came down in pieces. They have not yet been put back together again. For now, they remain in sections: his jeans, her heels, their kiss.

They will be reassembled soon for a more permanent display in the warehouse, Donna said. Eventually, he'd like to see about hanging the King on the side of a building he owns near East Passyunk. Return the King home.