Shore Is Gone

For all their prominence as landmarks, old signs are frail and ephemeral things in the end.  Hurricane Sandy reminded us of this last week, the storm's long list of casualties including two of New York's best landmark signs.  

Lobster carnage at the City Island Lobster House, 691 Bridge Street in the Bronx.  (flickr.com/jaydensonbx) 

In the Bronx, Sandy reduced the big neon crustacean over the City Island Lobster House to a sad pile of twisted metal and broken glass.  Near as I could tell, the big lobster wasn't particularly old (it seems to have been added to an existing roof sign in the late 1990s).  Though not so much historic, the lobster endeared itself to many as one of New York's most iconic neon signs, and probably City Island's most recognized landmark, a true signature piece of this Bronx enclave community.  The Lobster House itself has fortunately survived the destruction and is up and running again.  Plans for a new neon lobster are in the works, I am told, though the new lobster will probably be somewhat scaled down from the old one, sadly.

The City Island Lobster House in better days. (Kirsten Hively / Project Neon)

Across the city, the art deco vertical sign of Coney Island's Shore Theatre was a Landmark legally as well as literally.  Post-storm photos of the carnage appeared Tuesday on Tricia Vita's Amusing The Zillion blog, showing the sign's mangled remains dangling over Surf Avenue from the historic theater's facade. 

Wreckage of the Shore Theatre's art deco vertical sign, installed c. 1939. (flickr.com/Timothy Krause) 

The sign was not quite as old as the theater, which opened as the Loew's Coney Island in 1925 with marquee and vertical signs lit by incandescent bulbs.  The original incandescent signs disappeared around 1939 to make way for a set of streamlined, neon-lit replacements, which included the just-destroyed vertical sign (the neon marquee was already gone).  These were likely produced by Artkraft Strauss, which did most of the work for New York-area Loews theaters by contract. 

The Shore Theatre sign was a Coney Island landmark.  (T. Rinaldi) 

Loew's seems to have employed a few standard designs for its theater signage over the years.  The Loew's Coney Island's vertical replacement sign had at least one identically styled sibling, over at the Loew's Oriental on 86th Street in Brooklyn.  The Oriental has lost its sign and marquee but still stands today (it's now a Marshall's).  The Loew's Coney Island meanwhile kept its sign, which was neatly re-lettered from LOEWS to SHORE when the theater changed hands and was re-named around 1964.  

The Loew's Oriental on 86th Street bore a twin replacement sign. (American Classic Images)

The sad irony is that this was one of very few neon signs in New York that enjoyed the protection of the city's Landmarks Commission (the theater was Landmarked in 2010).  Protected from man, but not from nature, it turns out.  Plans for the future of the long vacant theater are still formative, but here's hoping its Landmarked status will ensure at least a good facsimile, perhaps incorporating salvaged parts from the original.

All things considered, a few smashed up signs are the least of of the troubles still facing NYC's hard-hit low-lying areas, and the thousands still without power, heat and water more than a week after the storm.  Even some areas relatively unscathed are still without vital transit connections.  Here are some ways to help the many who are still in need:

• The Red Cross
• Volunteer Opportunities in Staten Island
• Occupy Sandy
• Lots of links at NYCService.org
• And more at WNYC

Colony Record and Radio Center

The disappearance of Colony Record's old sign back in 2004 was one of those episodes that sewed the seeds of the project that became New York Neon.  The Colony survived and even installed some new neon, but the loss of its old sign made me realize that the time had come to start photographing the city's veteran neon before it was too late.  And now, as reported last month, the Colony's replacement sign too is set to vanish.

The Colony's current sign. (T. Rinaldi)  

The old sign whose loss I so ruefully bemoaned 8 years ago was not very old at all, as it turns out.  Though it looked like something out of the Robert Wagner era, it seems to have actually appeared in the early '70s, when the Colony moved into the famous Brill Building from its original location at 52nd and Broadway. The sign was memorable for its poodle skirt-clad neon maiden, leaping joyfully into the air, disk in hand, exclaiming I FOUND IT!  


The Colony's old sign, seen in an old photo formerly shown in its display window.

The disk girl was the successor not just to the Colony's original sign, but also to a series of extraordinary neon storefront displays that have anchored the northwest corner of 49th and Broadway for more than 80 years.  

The Colony's original sign, at 52nd and Broadway, made a brief appearance in John Schlesinger's 1969 film Midnight Cowboy. (Flickr.com / ChristianMontone, above; Midnight Cowboy, below)

The Brill Building opened in 1931, and by 1933 the corner now occupied by the Colony stood dressed in 2,500 feet of red and blue neon heralding impresario Nils T. Granlund's "Paradise Cabaret," a second floor nightclub that featured the "World's Most Beautiful Girls."  The Paradise didn't last long: by 1940 it had re-opened as a nightclub called the Hurricane, which itself made way for the exotic sounding Cafe Zanzibar by 1944. But the Zanzibar too proved not long for this corner: in 1949 it yielded to Bop City, a jazz club that lasted only a few years, despite featuring some notable headliners.

The Colony's spiritual ancestors: NTG's Paradise Cafe; Cafe Zanzibar, photographed by Alfred Eisenstaedt; Bop City, in a 1953 photo by Herman Leonard.  (Signs of the Times magazine, April 1933, used with permission, top; Alfred Eisenstaedt / Life Magazine, center; Herman Leonard / morrisonhotelgallery.com, bottom) 

The ground floor meanwhile housed Jack Amiel and Arnold Ruben's Turf Restaurant, which opened in 1940 and outlived one nightclub after the next until it finally closed in 1963.  The upstairs space eventually became home to a joint called the Avalon Ballroom (of which I could find no photos), but this too closed by 1966.  The northern part of the Brill Building meanwhile initially housed a Translux movie theater, which made way in 1937 for Jack Dempsey's "Broadway Bar and Cocktail Lounge."  Jack Dempsey's lasted clear up through 1974, about the time the Colony showed up. 


The Colony's sign swap, c. 2004, see in photo formerly displayed in its display windows. 

Today, the Colony's modest animated sign is the sole heir to a succession of legendary New York neon.  (An April 2011 post on the blog Lost City yielded some details on the old sign's disappearance - a zoning code issue, reportedly.)  What will follow it is anyone's guess.  A rather sinister rendering of the storefront's possible future appeared last week on the Jeremiah's Vanishing New York blog (which also shared a New York Post report that the Brill Building's new owner helped usher along the Colony's demise by imposing a five-fold rent hike). Whatever comes here next will have some big neon shoes to fill.


The disk girl, re-born as a window display after the old disappeared in 2004, will soon flash her last. (T. Rinaldi) 

SEE ALSO:

• First word of Colony's Closing, at JVNY.

• JVNY's report on the mega rent hike.

• NYT piece on the end of the Colony.

• Lost City blog's post on the Colony's 2004 sign swap.

• Highly informative LPC designation report for the Brill Building.

IN OTHER NEON NEWS:

• I have seen the neon book, and it is good!  She'll be in stores in about a month's time . . . 

Losing Lascoff's

A none-too-optimistic update on the ancient sign at Lascoff's Drugs: the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati offered to make arrangements to have the sign brought to its sign heaven in Ohio, so on Saturday (July 21) I went up to the store to leave a note asking the owners to contact the museum if they were interested in working something out.  

Lascoff's incredibly historic sign, with lettering removed, July 21, 2012. (T. Rinaldi)

No one contacted the museum.  Then, on Monday (July 23) I learned (via Wayne Heller at Lite Brite Neon) that the sign had been listed for sale on Craigslist.  

Lascoff's "museum quality" sign could have been yours via Craigslist. (Craigslist)

The ad was posted on July 16 with the caveat that the sign had to be removed by the next day, but the listing remained online through the 23rd (it's gone now) and the sign was still there as of Tuesday the 24th (though most of its lettering has been carefully removed, apparently for salvage).  I replied to the ad but once again got no answer, so, sadly, we are left to watch and wait. 

Lascoff's gutted: Saturday, July 21, 2012. (T. Rinaldi)

EXTRA FEATURE: SYLVIA, ELAINE AND FEDORA

What can I say that hasn't been said already, except - three lovely lady restaurateurs, three lovely signs.  Let's hope Sylvia's will be here for a long time to come.

From top: Sylvia's at 328 Lenox Ave.; Elaine's, formerly at 1703 Second Ave.; and Fedora, in its old guise, at 239 West Fourth Street. (T. Rinaldi)

IN OTHER NEON NEWS:

• On a happier note, Debra Jane is back on the road, making daily posts brimming with vintage sign porn par excellence through mid-August.
• By way of JVNY - Manganaro's closed back in March and now the sign is gone too: replaced, at least, with a well-intended approximation of its predecessor.  (The new business looks promising as well.)
• Special thanks to the Postcards from Hell's Kitchen blog for the shout-out this week!

• From the Up-For-Grabs department: Duke's Bar on East 19th Street is entertaining bids for a c. 1950s liquor store sign that has decorated its back room for the past decade or so.  Photo here. 

J. Leon Lascoff & Son

I have scrapped my planned blog post this week to run yet another obituary piece, this time for J. Leon Lascoff & Son, "Apothecaries," on the Upper East Side.  The news comes via the blog Jeremiah's Vanishing New York.  Sorry to say, I never patronized Lascoff's, so I'll (mostly) leave the memorializing to others and get down to neon business. 

 

Lascoff's, at 82nd and Lex.  The business served New Yorkers from 1899 until this past weekend.  The sign dates to 1931. (T. Rinaldi)

Suspended over Lascoff's storefront is one of the oldest neon signs in New York, installed in 1931.  The tubes vanished years ago, but the rest is there: raised letters, both serif and sans-, bead-and-reel border molding, and - best of all - that superb, pre-deco, symmetrical silhouette.  It's one of the most significant neon signs in the city.

Lascoff's sign exemplifies typical details common among neon signs of the late '20s and early '30s, including raised lettering, stamped sheet metal border moldings, and a symmetrical silhouette. (T. Rinaldi)

Lascoff's is (was) one of those neighborhood institutions that had been around so long (113 years) it seemed immune from the pressures that have done in so many businesses like it.  The shop was already old when the writer and painter Charles Green Shaw featured it in his book New York, Oddly Enough, back in 1938.  What caught Shaw's eye was not Lascoff's neon sign - then quite ordinary - but an old wooden mortar and pestle that hung just beneath it.  "Established in 1899, Lascoff's has served the Yorkville community ever since, and recently filled its millionth prescription," Shaw wrote.

 

Lascoff's as pictured in Charles Green Shaw's New York, Oddly Enough, in 1938.  The bottom of the neon sign is visible at top left. (NYPL)

The old mortar and pestle disappeared at some point, leaving just the metal bracket that held it in place.  I called Lascoff's last year to enquire about both signs, but the man I spoke with knew nothing about either.  By appearances, Lascoff's wooden sign was not quite 40 years old when Shaw photographed it.  The store's neon sign (which is featured the neon book) turns 81 this year.  

Lascoff's, elevation sketch.  (T. Rinaldi)

Someone needs to save this sign - do it for New York, do it for cultural heritage, do it for neon - but please, someone, save this sign!  If anyone has any information regarding the owner's intentions for the sign or a means of contacting them, please drop me a line.

 

Save This Sign. (T. Rinaldi)

SEE ALSO: 

• News of Lascoff's closing at JVNY.

• Lascoff's profiled in-depth at Forgotten NY.

• Lascoff's profiled in print in "The Historic Shops & Restaurants of NY" by Ellen Williams.

IN OTHER NEON NEWS:

• A heads-up from my uncle: in Western NY, the landmark Batavia Downs sign has made way for a LED replacement.

E. Kosches & Son Furniture

Last week, while browsing some old digital photos I took back in 2006, I came across a shot of a relic sign I'd completely forgotten about.  The sign belonged to Kosches Furniture, at 2171 Third Avenue in East Harlem.  Having no recollection of even taking the photo, finding it was like discovering this great sign all over again.  It's amazing how recently such relics were common enough in the city to be forgettable. 

E. Kosches & Son, at 2171 Third Ave. (T. Rinaldi)

Some light Internet delving turns up nothing particularly informative about Kosches Furniture, and no other photos of its lovely sign.  The DOB web site suggests that the business installed this sign in 1935, which sounds about right to me, from the looks of it.  This is when a sign was a sign.  Just look at that streamlined silhouette! 

The splayed "eagle's wing" effect high up on the spire of the Empire State Building seems to have inspired the design of the Kosches sign. (T. Rinaldi)

Whoever designed this made especially nice use of what one might call the splayed "eagle's wing" effect – the tiered taper of the vertical part of the sign, that seems to reference the winged spire of the Empire State Building.  This was a common device among sign designers of the 1930s and 40s (see, for example, the sign of the Veniero Pasticceria).  The lettering, too, is superb period work (get a load of that "E"!).

The neon sign of the Veniero Pasticceria on East 11th Street, with similar silhouette. (T. Rinaldi) 

At this point, you're probably wondering:  is it still there?  The answer, of course, is no.  If it were, I'd run right up, re-shoot it from several angles, bask in its interwar aura, maybe do a sketch of its elevation to satisfy my documentary instinct.  But Google Street View says don't bother.  There is a new sign in its place, advertising the liquor store that occupies 2171 Third Avenue today.  As often happens, the new sign echoes the basic shape of its predecessor, looking something like an up-side-down letter T, with no eagle's wings.  An echo not loud enough.

(Google Streetview)

Terminal Bar

A brief tribute this week to a sign I never saw:  the Terminal Bar, across Ninth Avenue from the Port Authority Bus Terminal, was not the kind of place my parents brought me on our visits to New York when I was a kid.  And lo, by the time I was old enough to venture into such establishments on my own, it was but a memory.  One can get a sense for the good old days, though, in this really spectacular short film, part of a longer work by Stefan Nadelman, that I came across thanks to the great then-and-now study of the film "Taxi Driver" over at ScoutingNY (the Terminal Bar makes a brief cameo in Scorsese's 1976 film).  Mr. Nedelman's film uses photographs and reminiscences from his father Sheldon, who tended bar here for ten years.

The Terminal Bar and its neighbors, c. 1976, as depicted in "Taxi Driver". Having just about killed myself trying to get decent rainy night photos for the neon book, I have concluded that Scorsese must have opened some fire hydrants to pull this off.  ("Taxi Driver")

Together with its neighbors, the Exchange Bar and the Bus Stop Bar – both very congenial places, I'm sure – the Terminal Bar made a stirring sight in its day.  Imagine coming out of Port Authority to find THIS - New York's neon receiving line, there to greet you. 

Schnipper's Quality Kitchen, at Eighth Avenue and 41st Street - the site of the Terminal Bar today.  (T. Rinaldi)

The Terminal Bar and its neighbors are ancient history today, of course – Renzo Piano's gleaming New York Times building stands in their place.  Yet, almost improbably, some pretty good new neon has sprouted here on lower reaches of the new building.  Are these hearty seedlings of the signs that existed here before?  Or did someone just feel that this corner wouldn't look right without a good sign?  In a way, perhaps, a bit of both. 

(The New York Times building has some other great signs at street level – does anyone know who made them?)

Above: New signs on the lower reaches of the new New York Times building. (T. Rinaldi) 

IN OTHER NEON NEWS:
• The neon book has gone out to the printer!
• Did anyone watch Jeopardy last night (May 7, 2012)? The correct response to final Jeopardy was "What is NEON?" and yes, I am pleased to say I got it right.

Maiman's Pharmacy

Last week came truly depressing news (by way of Project Neon and Brownstoner) on the disappearance of Maiman's Pharmacy and its splendid sign, which wrapped the corner of Franklin Avenue and  Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn for six decades.  This is the seventh classic neon sign to go dark or disappear so far this year in New York (as far as I know), all of them vanished with old independent businesses that have bitten the dust.

Maiman's Pharmacy, formerly at 821 Franklin Avenue in Brooklyn. (T. Rinaldi)

Maiman's had what I considered to be one of the best old signs in all of New York: first rate midcentury block and script letterforms, outlined in stainless steel channels and neon tubes in vibrant hues of pink, turquoise and white that set each other off beautifully. 

Maiman's Pharmacy, on a balmy summer night in June 2009. (T. Rinaldi)

The sign appeared around 1951, the work of the Silverescent Neon Sign Co. of Brooklyn.  Some time ago I interviewed Al Higger, the retired former president of Silverescent, who recalled that the Maiman's sign was an example of a somewhat standardized design scheme the company deployed for drug store jobs throughout the city in the 1950s.  The design was developed by Silverescent's longtime layout man Charlie Klein, whom Mr. Higger recalls as a talented draughtsman and, like most neon layout men in New York during those years, a member of the Sign Painter's Local 230. Klein's drug store signs usually involved script lettering for the owner's name, block letters for DRUGS or PHARMACY, and some variant of the traditional "Rx" prescription symbol for full effect.  

Silverescent manufacturer's plaque, formerly on the corner of Eastern Parkway and Franklin Ave. (T. Rinaldi)

When Mr. Higger told me this, another sign popped almost immediately into my head: that of the Antelis Pharmacy on Elm Avenue in Midwood.  Here survives another example of the Silverescent/Klein drug store sign.  Like Maiman's, the Antelis sign features the owner's name in script, set against block letters reading PHARMACY and a fine Rx symbol, illuminated in three shades of neon.  The script and the Rx symbol differed slightly between the two signs, but the block lettering was the same.  Interestingly, Mr. Klein seems to have employed the same sans-serif letterforms for another vanished Silverescent sign, at the old Faber's Arcade on Surf Avenue in Coney Island, which disappeared over the winter of 2010-2011.

Two iterations of the Silverescent/Klein drug store sign, at Maiman's (above) and the Antelis Pharmacy (below), at 1502 Elm Ave. in Brooklyn. (T. Rinaldi)

Block lettering at Antelis (above) and Maiman's (below). (T. Rinaldi)

Silverescent seems to have used the same letterforms at the former Faber's "Fascination" arcade in Coney Island. (T. Rinaldi)

I first photographed the Maiman's sign back in June 2009, during an epic all-day neon appreciation schlep that took me and a friend from Manhattan to Bed Stuy to Ozone Park to Far Rockaway then back to Crown Heights and finally Coney Island (we bade a grand farewell to the old R40 series subway cars that same day).  I came away with nice shots of Maiman's all aglow that night, but I wanted dusky shots for the neon book, so I eventually returned only to find the sign partially dimmed, apparently with a few transformer outages.  I tried again some months later but found the place closed for the night and the sign completely dark.  I had better luck this past December on my next (and last) trip, but then – after all that – I wound up using shots from that first visit back in 2009 for the book.

Maiman's in October 2010. (T. Rinaldi)

Somewhere along the way the owners gave the sign a good sprucing up, perhaps around the time the place changed hands a few years ago.  Someone cleaned and painted the porcelain enamel sign faces (painting porcelain enamel is like painting brick – sort of senseless but hey, points for TLC).  Whoever did this clearly had an appreciation for the sign:  the old Silverescent manufacturer's tag was carefully removed, cleaned and reinstalled, instead of just being painted over as usually happens.  This left me with the sense that Maiman's was in good hands and would be around for some time to come.  Alas, a grizzly photo at Brownstoner confirms the bad news that the sign and store have gone, leaving a dark and dreary sight in their wake.  Could it be that the sign found a good retirement home somewhere?  Fingers crossed.  Meanwhile, we still have at least one classic Silverescent/Klein drug store sign over at the Antelis Pharmacy – run out and admire while the admiring's good. Satisfy your pharmaceutical needs while you're at it.

Above: A series of photos from December 2011. (T. Rinaldi)

IN OTHER NEON NEWS:

• Every so often, some good news: at JVNY, progress on the Beatrice Inn sign restoration.

• At Ephemeral New York, some forgotten signs under awnings.

• Word from the Lost NY blog that Sokol Furniture in Red Hook, Brooklyn is closed and the sign likely gone or going soon.