Vintage neon signs

[LizzieMaine]

2929 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, summer 1940. Neon Scottie wants you to bring your pooch in to get clipped. I don't know if that's the proprietor loafing in the doorway, but if he is, he needs to know that he'll never get into Apparel Arts with that get-up. Put a tie on, schmuck.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And way down the other end of Fulton Street, intersecting with Jay Street in the heart of downtown, we find a typical Bond Clothes spectacular, which is less so during the day. They're best known for the big jobbie they had in Times Square, but even the hinterlands got a taste of Two Pant Suit glamour.

Note also the Waldorf Cafeteria next door -- Waldorf was an early, and very successful fast-food lunchroom chain that dotted the Northeast for most of the first half of the 20th Century. No relation to Applebees, but the food was about on the same level.

 

[Fading Fast]

2929 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, summer 1940. Neon Scottie wants you to bring your pooch in to get clipped. I don't know if that's the proprietor loafing in the doorway, but if he is, he needs to know that he'll never get into Apparel Arts with that get-up. Put a tie on, schmuck.
View attachment 145361

Held to the exacting standards of the uber-sartorial-perfect and superhero-proportioned Apparel Arts illustrations, away from Cary Grant and Gary Cooper, probably no man on earth would ever have made it to Apparel Arts.

 

[LizzieMaine]

That building at Fulton and Jay has been thru a few permutations, it would seem. Since the sartorial needs of the neighborhood weren't quite as swellegant as Bond would seem to require for its clientele, they vacated the premises by the late 1950s and gave way to an outlet of the "Vim" sporting goods/radio-tv/appliance chain -- which chain sported its own snazzy neon sign.

Note that the Waldorf Cafeteria is still present as of this photo on the Fulton Street side. And will you look at what recent work on that part of the facade revealed --

Even if old signs don't die, they do get buried.

 

[Fading Fast]

That building at Fulton and Jay has been thru a few permutations, it would seem. Since the sartorial needs of the neighborhood weren't quite as swellegant as Bond would seem to require for its clientele, they vacated the premises by the late 1950s and gave way to an outlet of the "Vim" sporting goods/radio-tv/appliance chain -- which chain sported its own snazzy neon sign.

Note that the Waldorf Cafeteria is still present as of this photo on the Fulton Street side. And will you look at what recent work on that part of the facade revealed --

Even if old signs don't die, they do get buried.

Note also the Thom McAn shoe sign. While I think the name still lives on in some rump form, in its day, Thom McAn was a very popular retail men's shoe company.

I can't tell you how many times I'll go by a store front being renovated in this city and see evidence of one or two past business signs.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Rob

 

[Lost Ronin]

I was born way too late. Sigh....

 

[LizzieMaine]

Note also the Thom McAn shoe sign. While I think the name still lives on in some rump form, in its day, Thom McAn was a very popular retail men's shoe company.

I can't tell you how many times I'll go by a store front being renovated in this city and see evidence of one or two past business signs.

New York has more layers than ancient Rome.

 

[Fading Fast]

New York has more layers than ancient Rome.

It's one of the things that draws me to this city. I love walking by a building being renovated and seeing its 1920s bones or a worn away part of a street that reveals cobblestones or streetcar tracks or I'll be headed for a meeting and getting off the elevator in a pre-war office building - and despite the modern lobby decor - I'll be on a floor that looks exactly like a film noir movie from the '40s - wide hallways, marble floors and walls, big casement windows, mail chutes, etc. - it's amazing how many floors like that still exist (and some of the bathrooms in these same office buildings will still have the incredible original fixtures).

When I first moved here in the mid '80s and did the welcome-to-NYC-hell ritual of trying to find an affordable apartment, I would visit these old apartment houses and love seeing wood mail cubbyholes in the lobby, transoms, birdcage elevators, and on and on - it makes the expense and other challenges of NYC worth it. This city does not make it easy - it spits people out like a Pez dispenser - but it does offer incredible Fedora Lounge opportunities.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Here's a very man-oriented location. 96 Flatbush Avenue's neon festoonery includes BILLIARDS and BOWLING, one of many local outlets of the Moe Levy menswear chain, and another Bond Clothing store. No doubt Mr. Levy and Mr. Bond sneered at each other and engaged in long and petty disputes over who shoveled what part of the sidewalk.

If that's not enough, you've also got the neighborhood hall of the CIO Transport Workers Union, a BAR AND GRILL, 26 lanes of bowling, and even PING PONG. If there's a more "Brooklyn 1940" scene to be found, I have yet to discover it.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Rob

 

[BobHufford]

Love the Indian Handicraft (with the loom) sign in the background...

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Rob

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Noir.

Rob

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Rob

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Rob

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Rob

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Rob

 

[Haversack]

The photo below that Ghostsoldier posted is from Roseburg, Oregon. Mid-1960s judging by the orange fastback Ford Mustang parked on the left side of the street. Enough time for the physical damage to be repaired. In 1959, this neighborhood was devastated when a construction warehouse fire detonated the 6 1/2 tons of dynamite and blasting powder loaded in a truck parked next to the building. This was three blocks away from where this photo was taken. It left a crater 20' deep and 70' in diameter, and damaged buildings 30 blocks away. 14 people were killed outright.

 

[Ghostsoldier]

Rob