Harlem YMCA

The Harlem YMCA is among the more sparkly gems on the neon book's cutting room floor.  In fact, it wasn't supposed to be there.  I had photographed it and even written the following caption for the book: 


Harlem YMCA: 180 West 135th Street, installed c. 1932 

"The great roof signs of the Harlem YMCA date to the building's opening on New Year's Day 1933, making them among the oldest functioning neon signs in New York today. (A vertical sign over the main entrance, not pictured, is a very convincing facsimile of a sign installed around 1950.) Determined not to lose business to movie houses and other less wholesome amusement venues, YMCAs across the United States almost invariably hung large illuminated signs high on their facades by the early years of the twentieth century." 

Two dusky views of the Harlem YMCA's roof signs, which have beamed out over East Harlem from their perch on 135th Street since 1933.  (T. Rinaldi)


The vertical sign over the door of the YMCA seems to have appeared around 1950.  The existing sign is a very convincing facsimile of the original, installed by Silverescent Neon around 1996.  (T. Rinaldi)

Somewhere along the line, the Harlem Y was accidentally dropped from the book. I realized this, to my acute horror, only once it was too late to squeeze it back in.  

As noted in the would-be caption text above, illuminated signs almost invariably hung over the doors and rooftops of YMCAs in New York and elsewhere.  Surviving examples in cities in towns all across the USA still attest to this, but the Harlem YMCA boasts New York's last bit of YMCA neon - with one exception.   

Electric signs became standard equipment for YMCAs across America in the early 20th century. 

Through the basement windows of an old brick building on West 23rd Street, just across from the Chelsea Hotel, passersby can glimpse one other surviving vestige of Y neon.  The sign once hung high aloft from the facade of the same building, formerly the McBurney YMCA, now home to the David Barton Gym.  Only the letter M comes alight today, casting its red glow over the gym's well heeled, well formed patrons writhing on elliptical machines weight benches.   

The McBurney YMCA's old neon sign, now decor at the David Barton gym. (T. Rinaldi)

The sign's innate coolness would surely have sufficed to justify the enormous effort of moving it down here.  But this sign has a special place in history, too - namely, its starring role in a certain music video . . .  

I refer, of course, to the Village People's 1978 gift to humanity, "YMCA".  The video is well worth a look not just for an idea of what the old McBurney YMCA sign looked like in place (or for a good pep talk, should you need one), but for a whole series of shots showing Chelsea and Greenwich Village in the heady days just before the AIDS crisis.  The sign remained in place through it all, until the McBurney branch moved from 23rd Street to its current location (on West 14th Street) in 2002.

No man does it all by himself. (YouTube)

  

IN OTHER NEON NEWS:

• Further down West 23rd Street, a facsimile has replaced the Westside Tavern's old blue BAR sign.

Sign Heaven

Where do good signs go when their time is up?  Why, to Cincinnati, Ohio, of course, and the American Sign Museum.  Last month, my father and I made a pilgrimage to this esteemed institution, partly so that I could round-out some punch list items for this neon book of mine, and partly just because the place looked like it merited the 11-hour drive from New York.  Having made the trip, I'm happy to say it was well worth the effort.

Relic from a vanished Manhattan Howard Johnson's preserved at the American Sign Musem - no, not the last Times Square HoJo's, but another one (the 1960 Manhattan yellow pages listed seven of them). (T. Rinaldi) 

Sections of the old incandescent Times Square "zipper", recently acquired by the American Sign Museum after being de-accessioned by the Museum of the City of New York, which had taken them in when the zipper was LED-ed back in the 1990s.  (T. Rinaldi)

Certain friends, when told of our destination, responded quizzically: "the *what* museum?", they would ask.  I, however, am only baffled that sign museums are so few and far between.  Just think about how many antique auto museums there are!  Alas, from sea to shining sea, there seems to be just this one museum dedicated to signs.  This is not to discount two other museums (the Museum of Neon Art in Los Angeles and the Neon Museum in Las Vegas) that have also preserved many wonderful signs; but these others are devoted to neon, not to signs of all flocks.

This electric boot once graced a Regal Shoe location in Brooklyn. (T. Rinaldi)

In addition to signs, the museum's collection includes historic ephemera and other items, such as various materials inherited from Times Square sign impresario Douglas Leigh.  Leigh's firm produced this mock-up showing a proposal for the Gordon's Gin and Haig Whiskey spectaculars that stood over the Bond Building in Times Square in the late 1960s. (T. Rinaldi)

The museum opened in 2005, the brainchild of Tod Swormstedt, whose family has published the Cincinnati-based Signs of the Times magazine for four generations.  In print since 1906, Signs of the Times has been the preeminent trade publication of the American sign industry for most of the years since then.  The magazine's back issues are an invaluable chronicle of American commercial design.  Having spent months chained to a microfilm reader poring over most of the magazine's entire run at the New York Public Library, visiting the museum was like seeing those grainy black and white images spring magically to life.  If I had been hit by a bus coming out of the library after one of those missions, heaven would have looked something like this.


Sunrise over the Sign Museum.  This is one of a pair of giant genies that once advertised Aladdin Carpet Cleaning in southern California.  (T. Rinaldi)

One needn't be a sign enthrallee to enjoy this place:  the signs make an exciting eye-full all gathered together, and the less you know going in, the more you'll learn before you come out.  While neon predominates, there are all forms of signs here, gathered from all corners of the country (including NYC), properly curated and expertly displayed.  The presentation is sufficiently powerful to change the way one looks at old and new signs in the world around us.

A preserved vertical sign for Ox-Line paints from the Boston area (top) has a cousin still in place in Williamsburg, Brooklyn (bottom). (T. Rinaldi)

The museum's entire collection is now (March 2012) being moved to a new location just north of downtown Cincinnati.  Housed in part of a historic brick industrial complex, the museum's new digs will feature a research library, event space, and an on-site restoration facility.  Visitors will also be able to view neon tube benders in action at the sign shop of Neonworks, which inhabits an adjoining space.  The museum is closed to visitors while its collection is being transferred, but will re-open this coming June, 2012 (check here for details).  I could go on for volumes about how wonderful the American Sign Museum is, but I'll wrap this up and let the photos speak for themselves.  If you've read this far, you owe yourself a trip to Cincinnati to see the real thing.  

THE AMERICAN SIGN MUSEUM is located at 1330 Monmouth Street in Cincinnati, Ohio.  It will re-open in June 2012.

Big genie and bigger hammer mark the museum entrance.  The hammer originated in Columbus, Indiana. (T. Rinaldi)

The sign museum's new home is part of a historic factory complex that once made women's clothing and parachutes. (T. Rinaldi)

Museum founder Tod Swormstedt tending to signs in the museum's on-premises repair shop. (T. Rinaldi)

The museum's new display area will feature a Main Street-USA mock-up, with larger free-standing signs centered in the space.  Big HoJo sign at center originally stood near Utica, NY. (T. Rinaldi) 

Signs waiting to be moved from the museum's old home. (T. Rinaldi)

 

Johnny's Big Red Grill was a Cornell University institution in Ithaca, NY.  After the restaurant closed, the sign was reportedly sold on eBay to an alum, who, not realizing it was 20 feet high, subsequently sold it to the American Sign Museum where it is now in storage awaiting restoration.  (T. Rinaldi)

L. Fish - not a fishmonger but a furniture store, formerly in Chicago, Illinois. (T. Rinaldi)

A pair of signs awaiting transfer to the museum's new location. (T. Rinaldi)

Other items in the museum's collection include this salesman's display for a Glo-Dial neon clock, an item that became a true 20th century American icon, typically installed at service stations. (T. Rinaldi)

Back issues of Signs of the Times Magazine, at the ST Media Group headquarters. In print since 1906, this journal is truly an American treasure. (T. Rinaldi) 

AND... OUTSIDE THE MUSEUM, A FEW SIGN SIGHTINGS IN 

DOWNTOWN CINCINNATI

Cincinnati YMCA, at Elm and Central Parkway. (T. Rinaldi)

Cincinnati Union Terminal. (T. Rinaldi)

The Imperial Theatre, at West McMicken Ave and Mohawk Place. (T. Rinaldi)

The grunge-tacular Dennison Hotel (closed, sadly), on Main Street near East 7th Street. (T. Rinaldi)

The Bay Horse Cafe, on Main not far from the Dennison. (T. Rinaldi)

 Scotti's Italian Restaurant, on Vine Street near West Court Street. (T. Rinaldi)

MANY THANKS to Tod and Wade Swormstedt for their help and hospitality.

Return to Jade Mountain

Kathleen from Canada longed to have an old neon sign of her very own, and now she has two: last summer she and a friend came to the rescue of the beloved projecting and fascia signs of the defunct Jade Mountain Restaurant in the East Village.  At the time of their disappearance last year, these counted as two of the finest vintage neon storefront signs anywhere in New York.  Very nearly lost, the signs are now tucked away for safe keeping in a Bronx warehouse, awaiting restoration. New York's last working CHOW MEIN sign finally went out in the summer of 2011.  (T. Rinaldi)  For signs and saviors alike, it came down to a matter of being in the right place at the right time.  One afternoon last summer, Kathleen noticed scaffolding going up at Jade Mountain's former home on 2nd Avenue. Siezing the moment, she found the contractor and enquired about the old CHOW MEIN sign that had remained in place after the restaurant closed in 2007.  The sign had already been removed and carted off to the contractor's junk pile in the Bronx, she learned.  Encouraged, Kathleen hiked up to the yard only to find the old sign partially dismantled, its neon tubes knocked out and metal faces folded over themselves, literally tossed on the scrap pile. The rather crumpled remains of Jade Mountain's CHOW MEIN sign today.  The sign was made by the Laster Neon Engineering Company in 1960. (T. Rinaldi) "If you like that signboard, I still have the other one downtown," the  man told Kathleen as she picked through the scrap pile looking for crumpled bits of CHOW MEIN.  Jade Mountain's other sign had been left behind the parapet wall over the storefront after the restaurant closed, hidden from view.  Unaware that it was even there and incredulous after seeing the condition of the CHOW MEIN sign, Kathleen almost didn't bother.  But on a hunch, she recruited some helpers and returned to Jade Mountain. Jade Mountain's fascia sign lay hidden behind a parapet wall for five years after the restaurant closed.  The sign was originally installed in 1954. (Kathleen M.) Long story short, both signs are now reunited, a bit worse for wear, but in safe keeping.  The Jade Mountain sign will require some new tubes (Kathleen managed to salvage many of the originals) but its sheet metal is largely intact.   Jade Mountain lives!  The sign's new owner managed to salvage much of the original glass tubing. (T. Rinaldi) The old CHOW MEIN sign didn't fare as well.  Blissfully unaware of its significance, the contractor's henchmen broke it down into its component parts for ease of handling on the way to the scrap pile.  But Kathleen was able to salvage the essentials: the weathered sign faces can be coaxed back into plumb and fastened onto a new concealed angle iron framework, its twisted channel letters can be nursed back into shape, and new neon tubes bent to replace the originals.  Not as bad as it looks: Chow Mein will shine another day.  (T. Rinaldi) Neon signs for Chinese restaurants held a unique prominence in the visual iconography of American cityscapes for most of the last century (as previously noted here).  Roman characters styled after East Asian scripts and bold signs reading simply CHOW MEIN or CHOP SUEY (as famously depicted in Edward Hopper's 1929 painting) were their hallmarks.  The Jade Mountain signs are particularly significant for exemplifyling both of these themes.  The restaurant's CHOW MEIN sign was the last functioning specimen of its kind in New York. Jade Mountain in September '06 (below), and in March 2012 (top). (T. Rinaldi) I had forgotten just how much there is to like about this pair of signs.  Seeing them up close, after their narrow escape from a shockingly cruel fate, their appeal really hits home: the fine stainless steel joinery of the JADE MOUNTAIN fascia sign, made by an unknown sign company in 1954; the handsome pre-Helvetica lettering of CHOW MEIN (made by the Laster Neon Engineering Co. in 1960), and the evocative patina on its old white porcelain enameled faces, which Kathleen plans to keep as-is when the signs are restored.  Displaying the signs will be another matter: at 15- and 7-feet long, they're too big to go over the mantle.  And besides that, their new owners would like them to wind up where they can be widely enjoyed.  In the meantime, even without their tubes, these old signs make the world a little brighter just for having survived. FOR MORE, SEE: • A moving NYT story on the demise of Jade Mountain when the restaurant closed in 2007. • The JVNY blog chronicled the disappearance of the Jade Mountain signs in a series of posts last summer. IN OTHER NEON NEWS: • The delightful "Old Fashion' But Good" signs of the M&G Soul Food Diner on 125th Street have disappeared (the business itself closed up shop back in 2008). • The signs of 20th and 6th through the years - including a rare glimpse of what are likely gas-lit signs - at Ephemeral New York. • I spent this weekend rounding-out "pen"-ultimate revisions to the neon book - one more round and she's off to the presses for release this fall!