Vintage neon signs

[Fading Fast]

Best blurb: "Steam Heat"

 

[2jakes]

Best blurb: "Steam Heat"
View attachment 133340 View attachment 133339

To my pal Fading Fast....

the Bel-Air Motel sign has at the bottom what appears to be “HBO” which
is interesting.
Found out that this Photo was taken in 1992.
Here's a postcard from around the 50s minus HBO.

 

[2jakes]

Fading Fast

^^^^^^^^^^
Foremost Ice Cream neon sign at bottom.

Saturdays in the wee hours of the morning... You could find me at work...riding this type of truck with only one seat for the driver when I was a kid.

I would stand and held on to the truck as we drove from house to house delivering not only
milk but eggs, chocolate milk and orange juice in glass bottles as well.

It's a miracle I didn't fall out since I was sleepy most of the time.
I am not a morning person unless I am off from work... then...
I can get up with no problem at all.

 

[LizzieMaine]

If there's one man in all history who I would suspect never actually ate a bagel in his life, it would be Arthur Godfrey.

 

[2jakes]

If there's one man in all history who I would suspect never actually ate a bagel in his life, it would be Arthur Godfrey.

According to the Columbus Dispatch:

"Radio helped familiarize Americans with the bagel, which by the mid 20th century had become a staple of New York delicatessens frequented by performers. A wire story that appeared in The Dispatch on Mar. 12, 1954, noted the creation of a pumpernickel bagel, which had been praised on the air by entertainer and talent scout Arthur Godfrey."


Lizzie...
Godfrey may not have eaten a single bagel in his entire Lipton life,
but he sure knew how to promote a product!

The dummy in the bottom had Buffalo Bob as co-host for their
Saturday morning TV show for kids.

The other one on top had singer Julius La Rosa on his show!

 

[LizzieMaine]

Godfrey made his name as a local morning DJ in Washington in the mid-thirties doing live commercials for "Zlotnick The Furrier," who had an enormous taxidermied polar bear on the sidewalk in front of his shop. Godfrey would read his commercials, and then comment on how moth-eaten the bear was, and people would go to the shop just to see how bad the bear really was. Mr. Zlotnick at first didn't appreciate the mockery, but later embraced it -- and Godfrey was on his way to stardom. He was the ultimate example of a media personality who had no talent at all except salesmanship.

 

[Fading Fast]

The added late "color TV" sign looks terrible:

Classic:

 

[Ghostsoldier]

The Buccaneer, back in the day.

Rob

 

[2jakes]

Godfrey made his name as a local morning DJ in Washington in the mid-thirties doing live commercials for "Zlotnick The Furrier," who had an enormous taxidermied polar bear on the sidewalk in front of his shop. Godfrey would read his commercials, and then comment on how moth-eaten the bear was, and people would go to the shop just to see how bad the bear really was. Mr. Zlotnick at first didn't appreciate the mockery, but later embraced it -- and Godfrey was on his way to stardom. He was the ultimate example of a media personality who had no talent at all except salesmanship.

Once again Lizzie... you hit another "home-run"!
You could write about flipping on/off a light switch or
flushing the commode and make it not only interesting
but entertaining as well.
Sincerely,
Thank you!

 

[2jakes]

 

[LizzieMaine]

The old Maxwell House plant in Hoboken -- complete with animated drops that the coffee is good to the last of.

Demolished in 1993, followed some time later by the plant, in favor of a luxury condo complex for the kind of bourgie snots who wouldn't be caught dead drinking Maxwell House.

 

[Fading Fast]

The old Maxwell House plant in Hoboken -- complete with animated drops that the coffee is good to the last of.

Demolished in 1993, followed some time later by the plant, in favor of a luxury condo complex for the kind of bourgie snots who wouldn't be caught dead drinking Maxwell House.

Leaving the politics aside, I lived a town over from Hoboken in the '80s and Hoboken was - at a distance -a really cool looking old waterfront town with incredible Fedora Lounge architecture like the above sign and factory. That said, the town was dying. It wasn't a functioning blue-collar neighborhood; it was, like so many of its ilk post the '60s, going to seed with crime up, working people fleeing as fast as they could and buildings and businesses being abandoned.

The first signs of life came as NYC started to come back in the late '80s. Say what you will about gentrification - I see both good and bad in it overall with each situation being a facts-and-specifics event that doesn't fit into a simple conclusive assessment - but for Hoboken, there wasn't much else positive going on. I watched the really early part of it take root which started to bring the town back to life.

And as to some of that architecture, I remember that an old Abbey that had been abandoned and falling apart was one of the early "condo" conversations where they kept the exterior unchanged (and nicely restored with oversight by a historical organization), but the inside was converted to well-past-my-budget condos.

Another neat thing in Hoboken and Jersey City (where I was living at the time) is that you could still see and walk through a lot of the old Pennsylvania and New York Central rail terminals as both companies' main lines stopped in those towns to, before the train tunnels under the Hudson river (connecting NY and NJ) were built, put their train cars on ferries to take them into NYC.

They were incredibly old and impressive - and large - buildings and train sheds in various states of deterioration which made them perfect for the many mob and crime movies and TV shows that used them for "atmospheric" backdrop for years.

 

[ChiTownScion]

Lizzie: "….. bourgie snots who wouldn't be caught dead drinking Maxwell House. "

Hey, even a bourgie snot couldn't say no to a cuppa joe proffered by Cora. Unless she suddenly flipped out and said that she was willing to kill you over your ruby slippers...

 

[Fading Fast]

Light it up and film it in B&W at night and its film noir-ness would jump out:


No neon, but still:

 

[3fingers]

The added late "color TV" sign looks terrible:

Those RCA signs were very common here. I know of at least one that remained until just a few years ago when the little motel was flattened to be replaced by a warehouse expansion. I have wondered how many TV sets you had to purchase to get the privilege of giving RCA free advertising.

 

[1mach1]

Not vintage, but cool none the less.

Crofton, MD

 

[LizzieMaine]

RCA would give those signs out to any motel that installed an RCA color set in all of its units -- and they'd often give the motelier a deep discount on those sets. The whole idea was a way of introducing an ever-changing audience of transients who would otherwise never consider spending $500 on a color set to just how splendid and impressive that it was. Being holed up in a motel on a rainy night in 1966 and seeing "Bonanza" unfold in lush oversaturated RCA color when all you'd ever seen was black and white was quite an effective pitch. I imagine a lot of them went right out as soon as they got home and bought one of those cheap $199 Philco roundies.

"Privilege" signs were always a thing -- the Coca-Cola sign above is a classic example of one, given to the merchant for free complete with his name on it in exchange for the "Privilege" of hanging their ad on the front of his building. They were usually much fancier than anything Joe Independentbusinessman could have afforded on his own, and the traveling reps for the companies that used them made a point of selling up the cachet of having your own little hole-in-the-wall joint associated with the Unmistakable Prestige of a Nationally Advertised Brand.

Wall ads were also very commonly done on a privilege basis. When you see the eroded remains of a Coke sign on the side of a building and at the top, in white letters on a black bar, you can just make out where it says "Peavey's Pharmacy", that's a privilege sign.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Augusta, Maine.

This sign hasn't worked in probably thirty years, but the business is still a going operation. When I was small, and we'd drive past it on the way to Gardiner, I'd think that they called it "Rotary" because of that mechanical rack that revolves around with the clothes. In reality they call it that because its located alongside what we locals insist on calling a "rotary," despite increasing outastate pressure to call it a "roundabout."

 

[Frunobulax]

Augusta, Maine.

This sign hasn't worked in probably thirty years, but the business is still a going operation. When I was small, and we'd drive past it on the way to Gardiner, I'd think that they called it "Rotary" because of that mechanical rack that revolves around with the clothes. In reality they call it that because its located alongside what we locals insist on calling a "rotary," despite increasing outastate pressure to call it a "roundabout."

And here I was, wondering if there was a Knights of Columbus Cleaners across town.

 

[Fading Fast]

RCA would give those signs out to any motel that installed an RCA color set in all of its units -- and they'd often give the motelier a deep discount on those sets. The whole idea was a way of introducing an ever-changing audience of transients who would otherwise never consider spending $500 on a color set to just how splendid and impressive that it was. Being holed up in a motel on a rainy night in 1966 and seeing "Bonanza" unfold in lush oversaturated RCA color when all you'd ever seen was black and white was quite an effective pitch. I imagine a lot of them went right out as soon as they got home and bought one of those cheap $199 Philco roundies.

"Privilege" signs were always a thing -- the Coca-Cola sign above is a classic example of one, given to the merchant for free complete with his name on it in exchange for the "Privilege" of hanging their ad on the front of his building. They were usually much fancier than anything Joe Independentbusinessman could have afforded on his own, and the traveling reps for the companies that used them made a point of selling up the cachet of having your own little hole-in-the-wall joint associated with the Unmistakable Prestige of a Nationally Advertised Brand.

Wall ads were also very commonly done on a privilege basis. When you see the eroded remains of a Coke sign on the side of a building and at the top, in white letters on a black bar, you can just make out where it says "Peavey's Pharmacy", that's a privilege sign.

How have I lived this long and not known (or remembered - not sure, sounded vaguely familiar) that the sign in return for "selling our stuff" was called a "privilege" sign.

Thinking way back, my dad and grandmother (his mom) owned a small appliance store (before I was born) and I'm pretty sure he told me they had a sign paid for by one of the brands they carried (but it is a real old memory).

Obviously facts and circumstances matter, but it doesn't sound like a bad deal at all to me - the small owner gets a better sign than he / she could afford and association with a national brand and the brand gets advertising and, obviously, a retail distributor.

... In reality they call it that because its located alongside what we locals insist on calling a "rotary," despite increasing outastate pressure to call it a "roundabout."

It sounds like an agenda is afoot with the pressure to change the name, but what is the agenda as it's not obvious to me why anyone would care?