Letters From Neon: Serifs and Sans-

As a child of the '80s, I grew up with a certain indistinct disgust for Helvetica.  I had no idea that it had a name.  The word "font" had yet to work its way into the popular lexicon.  I just knew that those letters were EVERYWHERE to such an extent that almost any other letterform seemed more appealing by comparison.

Corporate Helvetica.  (Thomas J. Quinn)

Come to find, I was not alone.  The coming-of-age of a new graphically-conscious generation has seen bit of a backlash against the tyranny of Helvetica.  This, I realized only when I began writing the neon book, is a big part of the the widespread enthusiasm for old signs (neon and otherwise) today.  

The post-Helvetica generation at work: anything but Helvetica on this recent Netflix packaging.

"Neonline Block."  Historically, signpainters could source letterforms like these from books such as Alf Becker's "100 Alphabets," published in 1941.  (NYPL)

Old neon signs almost never use anything that looks like Hevetica.  In fact, as I learned, they don't really use typefaces at all.  At an early stage in writing the neon book, I made an ill-conceived attempt to describe certain signs in terms of "typefaces" or fonts.  As type designer Paul Shaw told me over beers one evening at the Dublin House bar, the letterforms found on these old signs are often unique designs created by sign painters on a case-by-case basis.  "These guys were sign painters," he told me: "give them the credit they're due." 

Eight old neon bar signs found around NYC.  Not one features the standard, triangular "A".  The round-topped "A" is an icon of classic neon typography.  (T. Rinaldi)

The individuality of design found among old signs is heightened because big corporate retailers and chain stores never let their signs get old. Thus, signs that survive more than a few years usually belong to independent businesses whose old signs - and pre-Helvetica letterforms - are truly one of a kind.  Though old neon signs are seldom discussed in terms of type design, I have come to the conviction that lettering is an essential part of their appeal.  Feast your eyes, then, on some favorite letterforms from the signs I found in my ongoing survey of New York's surviving pre-Helvetica neon.


Classic, round-topped "A"s are the least of it at the Papaya King (179 East 86th St., Manhattan, made 1964 by the LaSalle Sign Corp).  Check out those "P"s and "Y"s, too!  That "K" ain't bad either...



At Circo's Pasticceria (312 Knickerbocker Ave., Brooklyn, made c. 1953), we find the classic round-topped "A" with slab serifs, no less...


More round-topped "A"s at Nathan's Famous (1310 Surf Ave., Bkln, made c. 1960 by the Salzman Sign Co.) - witness, too, the signpainter's stretched-and-skewed letterforms, seen also at:


Capitol Tackle (132 W36th St., Manhattan, made c. 1941 probably by City Wide Neon), and at: 


...Rudy's Bar and Grill (627 9th Ave., made 1937 - note the nice chamfering happening here, too), and formerly at:


The Collins' Bar (735 8th Ave., Manhattan, made c. 1930) - dig that chamfering, too!


Frank's Fish Market (formerly at 4230 Broadway, Manhattan, made 1949) had all the elements of classic neon streamlining - round-topped "A" and "M", "C"-shaped "E", lovely arced legs on "R"s and "K"s, and - my favorite, the lower-case "N" promoted to a capital, used to great effect at:


...Broadway Wines & Liquors (38-09 Broadway, Astoria, Queens, made c. 1945 - delight also in the cup-bottomed "W", "3"-shaped "E", and deco thick-and-thin action).  


Another lower-case N at Waverly Wines & Liquors (formerly at 135 Waverly Place, Manhattan, made c. 1955).  But wait, there's more, at:


M&M Pharmacy (1901 Avenue M, Brooklyn, made c. 1945).  Let's pause here to admire some of my absolute favorite lettering anywhere in NYC: 




The lower-case "N" appeared also at the Cheyenne Diner:

Formerly at 411 Ninth Ave. - this one actually seems to have been drawn-up sometime in the mid-1980s, a very good riff on letterforms of old.  Cheyenne has decamped, but one can still admire the lower-case-upper-case N at: 

...Smith's Bar & Grill (701 Eighth Ave., Manhattan, made 1954 by Da-Nite Neon).  Let's use this one to segue to another favorite - can you guess?

It's also seen here, at the former Austin Theatre - now the Kew Gardens Cinema (8105 Lefferts Blvd., Kew Gardens, Queens, made c. 1935) - I refer of course to the slinky "S", that we find also at:

...Seward Park Liquors (398 Grand St., Manhattan, made c. 1960) - and, at:

...Catania's Shoes (3015 Westchester Ave., in the Bronx, made c. 1945 by Globe Neon).  Let's take a moment to admire them in detail: 

A rather different "S", no less likable, we find at:

...Fuller's Drugs (2688 3rd Ave., Bronx, made c. 1957).

Changing gears a bit, let's segue toward some lower-case love, starting with:

...Louis Zuflacht, a long-vanished Lower East Side purveyor of "Smart Clothes" (154 Stanton Street, Manhattan, made 1942).  Gorgeous letters from curly-topped "L" to slanty-cross-barred lower-case "t" - oh, but wait...

Here, perhaps, the ne-plus-ultra of New York's neon letterforms, at the Village Vanguard (178 Seventh Ave. South, Manhattan, made c. 1949).  A replica of the original sign - whoever made this did a superb job reproducing the original letters.  That "d"!  That "r"!  That "n"!  Those "a"s!  And oh, that "g," maybe my favorite letter in town.

Some rather boxy, very midcentury lower-casers, at the Palomba Academy of Music (974 East Gun Hill Road, Bronx, made 1956 by the Grauer Sign Co.).  These letters appear to have cousins, at:

Goldberger's Pharmacy (1200 First Ave., Manhattan, made c. 1960).  

Going back to caps-lock, but staying with the boxy theme, behold:

Ganin Tires (formerly at 2360 Flatbush Ave., Brooklyn, made c. 1960), and these:

...at Midtown's self-proclaimed Famous Oyster Bar (842 Seventh Ave., made c. 1960).  Then we find these bolder versions at:

Rose Wine and Liquors (450 Columbus Ave., Manhattan, made c. 1954 by Midtown Neon).  By way of a little contrast, let's admire:

...these Futura-ish letterforms, formerly at JL Wine and Liquor (formerly Goldrich Wine, at 60 E34th Street, Manhattan, made 1950).  Alas, these have recently yielded to LED replacements.  Happily, we still have these:

...at the beloved Block Drugs (101 Second Ave., Manhattan, made in 1945).  If Block's geometric sans-serifs don't sufficiently suit your taste for the pre-Helvetica, try these on for size:

Very rare surviving pre-War thick-and-thins, at the Boulevard Tavern (575 Meeker Ave., Brooklyn, made c. 1935) - please, someone re-light this!!  And then there was this:

The late, lamented Lenox Lounge (formerly at 961 Lenox Ave., made c. 1945).  

In a slightly different vein...

I like to call these letters "brushstroke," though that's not really a technical term - seen here at Gringer's (27 First Ave., Manhattan, made 1953 by Salzman), and here at:

...Caskey's Tavern (6869 Fresh Pond Road, Ridgewood, Queens, made c. 1956), and lastly at:

...Cambridge Liquors (594 8th Ave., Manhattan, made 1952).

Finally, let's round-out the tour with a few exemplary one-offs:

Ah, D'Aiuto, how I love your letters!  (D'Aiuto Pastry Shop, 405 8th Ave., Manhattan, made 1960 by Grauer.)  From that wing-topped "A" to the loopy "O" at the end.  

Lovely letters here, at the former Plan Travel (72-22 Austin Street, Forest Hills, Queens).  These appear suspiciously similar to the letters used at this long-gone, Morris Lapidus-designed Rival Shoe outlet, formerly on 125th Street in Harlem.

Lovely letters here, too, at the incredibly great Clover Deli (621 Second Ave., Manhattan, made 1956 by Globe Neon).

I was much enamored of these unique thick-and-thins, at the now-gone Manhattan Furrier (685 Manhattan Ave., Greenpoint, Brooklyn, made c. 1953).  And last but not least:

... one of my absolute favorites, at Katz's Drugs (76 Graham Ave., Williamsburg, Brooklyn, made c. 1955 by Silverescent).  We can likely thank Silverescent's layout man Charlie Klein for this tour-de-force of porcelain enamel, stainless and neon, with some classic script-block contrast, and - best of all - those "R"s, "G"s, "P"s, "N"s and "C"s. The subtle originality of New York's midcentury letterforms, at its best. 

The Utah House

With all due apologies, this week's post is short on neon.  Neon diehards will find some neon news at bottom.  

The recent disappearance of my neighborhood bodega has opened a window into the ancient and somewhat sordid past of the corner of 25th Street and Eighth Avenue in Manhattan.  Last fall, when a 7-Eleven opened immediately next door to Kyung's Gourmet Foods at this corner, one couldn't help but wonder how long the family-owned deli-grocery would last.  Kyung's held-on for about six months before closing up and moving out this past March.  

Summer, 2012. (T. Rinaldi)

Placards heralding a new business appeared under Kyung's abandoned vinyl awning not long afterward.  The new tenant (remarkably not a bank or nail salon, but what looks to be an upscale version of its predecessor) soon set about gutting the space.  As workmen peeled away layers of old storefrontage outside, I eagerly tracked their progress, hoping (as sometimes happens) that they might unearth some long-lost neon relic of a previous occupant.

April, 2013.  Kyung's Gourmet Foods closed about six months after a Seven-Eleven opened next door. (T. Rinaldi)

Alas, no such luck.  Last week, the demo crew hit bedrock - actually brownstone, in this case, the old lintels that support the wall over the storefront.  "Too bad," I thought, and turned to cross the street last Wednesday night.  But wait - what was that?  Faded letters, painted on the masonry: old, flamboyantly-serifed letters, roused from somnolence like One-Eyed Willie's ghost ship after untold decades entombed beneath layers of sheetmetal, vinyl and fluorescent lights.  UTAH HOUSE, the sign said, where Kyung's had dispensed sixpacks and cigarettes until just a few weeks before. 

Utah House exposed, last Thursday (May 23, 2013). (T. Rinaldi)

Minutes later, back home, I punched the words into Google.  No dice - at least nothing salient (the Utah House of Representatives scrambled the returns).  Plan B: nytimes.com.  This exercise, too, would have proved fruitless, but for the NYT's handy "sort by oldest first" feature.  From a series of old headlines, a sketch history of the Utah House emerged. 

UTAH. (T. Rinaldi)

The Utah House, it seems, was a watering hole, meeting hall and hotel that occupied the stout brick building at the northeasterly corner of 25th and Eighth for about seventy years, from the 1850s through 1910s.  A Times writer in 1880 described the premises: "Utah hall is a Masonic hall over the beer department of the Utah House."  Over the course of its long life, the Utah House hosted meetings of striking laborers, political parties, and fraternal organizations.  Some, like the American Legion and the Teamsters union, are still with us today.  Others, like the New York Hay Exchange and the "New-York Lodge of the Growlers," are clearly of a different era.


HOUSE. (T. Rinaldi)

What of the name?  In 1854, when the Utah House first crops up in the Times, the newly-minted Utah Territory was in the midst of a four-fold population boom (says Wikipedia), its numbers swelling from 10,000 to 50,000 in the span of just ten years.  A Times writer in 1880 speculated on a tie to the Latter Day Saints.  The goings-on at 25th and Eighth, however, tended to be a substantially less than saintly nature.  

At 2:30 on the morning of June 28, 1896, the Utah House witnessed the bloody end of one Thomas Thornton.  It seems that Tom had yielded to his mischievous instincts, robbing and assaulting a certain Charles Melander in the shadows of West 25th Street, after rendezvousing with his brother at the Utah's "beer department" earlier in the evening.  As luck would have it, the brothers Thornton quickly found themselves collared by New York's Finest.  Tom resisted arrest and got himself shot.  Said the Times: "he fell on his face dead. . . . 'Tom' Thornton was well known to the police.  He had been arrested several times for intoxication and three times of assault proffered by his wife."

The Illustrated London News' coverage of the 1871 Orange riots included this engraving, which shows the Utah House's painted sign in the same off-center configuration it bore last week. (Illustrated London News / Antiqua Print Gallery)

25 years earlier, the Utah House presided over one of the bloodiest episodes in the city's history.  The Orange Riots of 1871 left 60 dead after ugly confrontations between Protestant and Catholic factions of New York's Irish immigrant community.  As Catholic onlookers began hurling shoes, bottles, stones and bricks at a parade of Protestant "Orangemen" on Eighth Avenue, the police and national guardsmen opened fire. 

 
142 years later, all's quiet at 25th and 8th. (T. Rinaldi)

"The Utah House, on the north-east corner of Eighth-avenue and Twenty-fifth-street, is among the buildings which bear conspicuous evidence of having been chipped by the musket balls," reported the Times on July 13, 1871. "The scene was, in truth, a horrible one.  On the north-east corner of Eighth-avenue and Twenty-fourth-street, where the firing had been hottest, lay the bodies of eight persons who had been shot.  Four of them were apparently killed outright, two being shot through the breast, and one having the back and side of his head fearfully mutilated, as if several shots had struck him.  The other dead person was a woman, seemingly a servant, who had been drawn thither by the general excitement, and had not time to escape when the troops began to fire.  She had fallen on two dead bodies, and lay there with her hands stretched out and tightly clasped over her head, while from a rifle-wound in her forehead her life-blood was slowly oozing.  Of the wounded men, two had been struck in the legs, and another had his arm badly shattered, while one man was vainly trying to raise himself from the ground, whose whole face was covered in blood, while from a ghastly wound in his head his brain was protruding.  The sidewalk was drenched with blood, and the window-panes of the stores on either corner ... were shattered by the bullets."

Happily, the Utah House seems to have lived out the rest of its tenure in relative tranquility.  Its final appearance in the Times came under the headline "Chelsea Old-Timer Dead," on January 18, 1916.   "John S. Lockwood, 70 years old, a familiar figure in Chelsea Village since the civil war, was found dead in his room in the Utah House last night.  Death was due to natural causes.  In 1876 he was reputed to be worth more than $100,000.  Last night the 75 cents found among his effects in his room was believed to be all the money he had."  Lockwood, said the Times, was a Civil War veteran and one-time intimate of Tweed.  On hearing news of his death, a delegation of local political types "visited the hotel, identified the body, and said they would raise a fund to prevent Lockwood's burial in Potter's Field." 

The Former Utah House, c. 1980. (Municipal Archives)

What became of the Utah House after they carried old Lockwood off to the undertaker remains consigned to the shadowy depths of archival obscurity.  The window that brought this odd relic to light seems already to have closed: by Friday, a layer of fresh plywood already obscured the old sign from view once again.  With any luck it will remain there, safely entombed like so many other ghost signs in the strata of the city's commercial archeology, maybe one day to see the light of day once more.

SEE ALSO: 

• Utah House coverage at ENY and at JVNY.

• JVNY on Kyung's disappearance and on 7-Eleven's plot to take over Manhattan.  

• Frank Jump's Fading Ads of New York City (if you haven't already).

IN OTHER NEON NEWS: 

• In keeping with the theme of this week's post: a storefront remodeling in Williamsburg, Brooklyn has unearthed an ancient neon sign that once advertised a Treadwell Shoes outlet.  And, says the owner, this could be yours.  The tubes are gone but the embossed sheet metal is all there.  Interested parties should e-mail me for the owner's contact info. 

(M. Zawacki)

• Good news, for once, from Brooklyn: two of the borough's best old neon signs are undergoing fine restorations.  Stay tuned for more on the relighting of Circo's Pasticceria in Bushwick and the Long Island Restaurant on Atlantic Ave.

(T. Rinaldi)

• Good news and bad news, via James and Karla Murray: Nathan's finally reopened, just in time for Memorial Day.  But we have sadly lost the Olympia Florist up on Broadway and 158th street.

• An upstate downer: the Northern Dutchess Pharmacy in Rhinebeck has closed up shop, taking with it one of the village's two grandfathered neon signs. 

RIP: Northern Dutchess Drugs in Rhinebeck.  (T. Rinaldi) 

• Flynn's Bar and Grill - some long-lost east side neon brought to us by shorpy.com

• Via the Lost City blog, a glimpse at the vanished neon storefront of the Hankow Chinese Restaurant. 

UPCOMING NYNEON TALKS:

• June 19, 2013, for the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative at the Neighborhood Preservation Center.
• July 22, 2013, at the NYPL / Mid-Manhattan Branch.

Google Neon Decoded

Out of the overwhelming response to last week's name-that-sign-challenge, one winner has emerged:  congratulations to Mike Harrison of Manhattan for getting 8 out of 12.   

As it happens, Mike was also the only person to submit an entry, so it's especially lucky that he got the answers right. I myself could guess only 7 of the 12 letters.  

For those who missed last week's post, the challenge was to identify the original signs referenced in two new neon displays in the east and west lobbies of the Googleplex, housed in the old Port Authority building in Chelsea.  A few of these were driving me absolutely nuts, until Jose Troconis at GrahamHanson decoded them for me.  As suggested last week, some are long gone.  Most, however, are still here to be seen:

GOOGLE EAST (EIGHTH AVENUE LOBBY)

G / DOMINO SUGAR - Williamsburg, Brooklyn  

Artkraft Strauss installed the existing Domino sign in 1967-69, replacing an earlier neon roof sign that stood atop the older part of the now-abandoned sugar refinery.  The existing sign is slated for preservation, when and if the proposed Domino condo-conversion ever takes off.

O / COLONY RECORDS – formerly at 1619 Broadway, Manhattan  

This "O" comes from the third generation of neon signs that advertised the venerable Colony Records.  Installed around 2004, this sign hadn't reached its 10th birthday before the Colony closed its doors in the fall of 2012 after some 60 years in business.  

O / TOWER RECORDS – formerly at 1961 Broadway, Manhattan  

"O" number 2 is a reference to the Tower Records logo, a neon iteration of which formerly wrapped the corner of 1961 Broadway, just across W66th Street from Lincoln Center.  Something felt right about having a record store across the street from the Julliard.  Alas, Tower closed in the fall of 2006.  It's a Raymour and Flanagan now.

G / VILLAGE VANGUARD – 178 Seventh Avenue South, Manhattan   

Perhaps my favorite "G" on Earth, the original belongs to a set of equally attractive letters that hang over the Village Vanguard, in Greenwich Village.  The Vanguard's original sign seems to have appeared here sometime in the late 1940s.   The existing sign is a rather good facsimile that faithfully reproduced the lettering of its predecessor.

L / APOLLO THEATRE – 253 W125th Street, Manhattan  

Like the Village Vanguard sign, the Apollo's existing signs are faithful reproductions, whose installation was overseen by the city's Landmarks Commission.  The previous sign and marquee appeared in 1940, replacing highly eccentric incandescent bulb signs.

E / KATZ'S DELICATESSEN – 205 East Houston Street, Manhattan

One of New York's most distinctive "E"s, this geometric beauty comes almost full circle.  Happily, the original sign survives in situ and hopefully will for a long time to come.   Buildings Department records give an installation date of 1935.  Katz's itself is celebrating 125 years in business in 2013.

GOOGLE WEST (NINTH AVENUE LOBBY):

G / MADISON SQUARE GARDEN – Formerly on 8th Ave. between 49th and 50th Streets, Manhattan

A once prominent sign now lost to the depths of obscurity.   This "G" comes from the third Garden's second marquee – that is, the neon marquee installed sometime around 1940 over the main entrance of the 1925 iteration of Madison Square Garden.   Preceded and succeeded by incandescent and fluorescent marquees, respectively, this appears to have been the Garden's one neon incarnation. (Photo via WiredNewYork)

O / JUNIOR'S – 386 Flatbush Ave., Brooklyn

Looks to me more like something borrowed from Coca Cola or Coors, but this "O" is meant to reference that of Junior's, the Flatbush flagship of downtown Brooklyn. (Photo via NYCwithJeff)

O / THE COTTON CLUB – Formerly at 656 W125th Street, Manhattan

The Cotton Club is/was sufficiently famed to earn its own Wikipedia page.  This "O" is borrowed from signs that advertised a latter-day, tourist-trapish incarnation that cropped up in way-western Harlem sometime around 1980.  The earlier Cotton Clubs had fairly robust neon displays of their own, but with less self-consciously "deco" lettering. (Photo via flickr.com/DiegoF)

G / LA GROCERIA – formerly at 333 6th Ave., Manhattan

Judging by some rather heartfelt online eulogizing, La Groceria seems to have been quite the hip, happenin' place in its day, which lasted from the early 1960s through the mid-'80s.  The West 4th Street Papaya Dog occupies the space now, a hip-happenin little place in its own right.  The JVNY blog tells us that changes are now afoot for Papaya and its neighbors.  (Photo via NYU)

L / PEPSI-COLA – Long Island City, Queens

Surely a contender for New York's best-liked sign.  Pepsi has marked the Long Island City waterfront since 1937.  The original sign has actually outlived the building atop which it once stood, a now-demolished Pepsi bottling plant that made way for a battery of highrise condo towers in 2005.   Another tribute can now be found way over across the borough at Citi Field.

E / CLOVER DELICATESSEN – 621 Second Ave., Manhattan

A truly phenomenal sign installed by the truly phenomenal Clover Deli in 1956.  The business itself is older, having opened over on Second Ave shortly after WWII.  The Clover is still alive and well today, under the management of the same family for nearly 70 years.

MANY THANKS to Jose Troconis at Graham Hanson design for decoding the Google Signs.

UPCOMING NYNEON TALKS:

• June 19, 2013, for the Lower East Side Preservation Initiative at the Neighborhood Preservation Center.
• July 22, 2013, at the NYPL / Mid-Manhattan Branch.

  

Name Those Signs, Win Free Book

I recently had an almost unspeakable thrill over at the Googleplex, in the former Port Authority building in Chelsea.  There in the building's east and west lobbies, Google has rendered its six-letter moniker using letterforms borrowed from actual old signs found around NYC. Installed in October and December of 2012, the signs are the product of a collaboration between Graham Hanson Design and Manhattan Neon.  

Google Lobby Neon. (T. Rinaldi)

Do some of these letters look familiar?  As noted above, they're all sourced from actual signs that exist (or once existed) somewhere in the five boroughs.  Think you can name those signs?  The fine folks at Norton have offered one free copy of the neon book to the first person who can identify the original signs sampled for the Google displays.  Some ground rules:

1) Identify the original source for of any eight of the 12 letters used in the two signs.  

2) Submit your guesses via the "Post A Comment" box at the bottom of this post. (If you don't see the "comments" box, try clicking on the headline at the top and look again.)

3) As an alternate, you may submit your guesses by e-mailing me at the address on my CONTACT page.

4) Anyone with insider knowledge of the answers is hereby disqualified and not eligible to win. 

5) Please do not cheat by e-mailing or calling Graham Hanson or Manhattan Neon to ask for the answers!  This is also grounds for disqualification.

6) One book goes to the first correct answer.

Ready, set, name those signs!  Answers to be posted once we have a winner.  Good luck to you!


IN OTHER NEON NEWS: 

• Odd bits of the late great Lascoff's pharmacy have turned up for sale at eBay. Still no sign of the sign.  (Via JVNY and Mike H.)
• Also via the JVNY blog: some good NYNeon of yore, as depicted in the art of Richard Estes (scroll through).
• And still more via JVNY and Gotham Lost and Found: The haunting old pile once home to the Collins Bar is finally coming down, it seems.
• Some Paterson, NJ neon (Kartch's of Main Street) recently over at Shorpy.com
• Good news, for once, maybe: a neon preservation initiative in Dallas, Texas.

UPCOMING NYNEON TALKS:

• July 22, 2013, at the NYPL / Mid-Manhattan Branch.

United States Lines

A slight digression this week from the normal neon fare to visit upon another threatened icon of the New York Landscape.  Over at the Pier 76 tow pound on Manhattan's west side, long-dark neon signage recalls the once formidable United States Lines.  The company's flagship, the SS United States, was a fixture on the New York waterfront from its maiden voyage in 1952 until 1969.  The SS United States exemplified the point-to-point ocean liners that were character-defining features of the city's harbor for decades, until jet aircraft rendered them obsolete as basic transportation in the 1960s. 

Above: US Lines neon at Pier 76, still in situ after all these years.  One of the "I"s came alight each night until a few years ago. (T. Rinaldi)  Below: as often depicted in old postcards, the SS United States were features of the New York skyline for decades.

Remarkably, the SS United States survives today, now one of the very last ships of her kind anywhere in the world.  A nonprofit called the SS United States Conservancy has taken stewardship of the vessel (now idle at Philadelphia) with an eye toward preserving the ship as a stationary historic site, ideally at an underutilized pier in her former home port of New York.

United States neon.  Above: Location unknown, perhaps the company's headquarters at 1 B'way. (R. Garcia/Serota Sign Corp.)  Below: a detail of the signs that once faced out from the ends of Piers 84 and 86, as seen in a 1954 advertisement for Corning neon glass tubes. (Signs of the Times Magazine, used with permission, below)

But time is money, and the Conservancy needs more time – and money – to keep the SS United States afloat until a deal can be struck to re-purpose and restore the ship.  In this season of tax deadlines and Titanic anniversary tributes, please consider making tax-deductible contribution to help save "the most famous ship that didn't sink," a New York landmark in exile.

For now, the SS United States resides at an industrial pier in Philadelphia. (T. Rinaldi)

IN OTHER NEON NEWS:

• Heartwrenching news from the Upper East Side via ProjectNeon - Cork and Bottle liquors has ditched their great old signs for plastic replacements.

• More bad liquor news from Midtown: JL Liquors, on East 34th Street, one of my favorites, has gone LED. 

• I am told that the Manhattan Furrier sign over in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, is a gonner.  Can anyone confirm?

• Now, the good news: the Langdon Florist sign down on Reade St. has been restored by Paul Signs of Brooklyn.

• Stay tuned for details on the pending restorations of the Long Island Restaurant and - yes, at last - Circo Pasticceria signs in Brooklyn!

• "Flickering Light," a new book from author Christoph Ribbat, takes on the whole big crazy history of neon.

UPCOMING NYNEON TALKS:

• RESCHEDULED: my walking tour of Upper West Side neon was mercilessly rained out!  The tour will take place on Weds 5/1/13; see the West Side Rag for details (ignore the date at this link).

• July 22, 2013, at the NYPL / Mid-Manhattan Branch. 

World Telegram

Of all the old signs in New York, the big rooftop spectaculars facing out over New York Harbor have always held a particular fascination for me.  Among these, the old World Telegram sign in lower Manhattan is a particular favorite.  I never saw it in person, but it turns up every now and then in old photographs of the downtown skyline, typically presiding over steam ferry boats, ancient sagging piers, and other long-vanished pleasures of the harbor.

The World Telegram presides over another departure of the Barclay Street ferry, July 31, 1964; (Photo by A.R., T.W. Scull Collection; WSS/PONY)

One day not long ago, having hopped off a boat from Hoboken and marched east through the Irish Hunger Memorial, I glanced up and happened upon a vaguely familiar sight.  The World Telegram is long gone, but there atop its old art deco headquarters building, the steel armature that once held the sign aloft over the Barclay Street ferry docks is still there, a haunting reminder of the lost waterfront.

World Telegram's ghost armature today.  (T. Rinaldi)

Similar neon relics can be found elsewhere, especially over in Long Island City.  But here where so much has changed in the past few decades, where the World Trade Center has come and gone and come again, where Battery Park City has risen over what was once open water, it seems more than a little bit remarkable to find such an odd vestige of the old skyline still with us.  Maybe it's just me, but that old steel skeleton seems to cry out for some big neon letters to once again take their place on the skyline.  Alas, the old World Telegram building no longer looks down over the bustling waterfront, but now sees its own reflection in the glassy facade of the 44-story Goldman Sachs tower at 200 West Street, built over the old Barclay Street ferry slips.

125 Barclay Street, the former World Telegram building, around the time of its completion - no sign yet - c. 1930.    The art deco building was the work of architects Howell & Thomas.  (flickr/CPL Fine Arts and Special Collections)

UPCOMING NYNEON TALKS:

• This Wednesday, April 10, 2013, I'll lead a walking tour of Upper West Side neon, sponsored by Landmark West; we'll meet under the AAA sign at Broadway and 62nd at 7pm and proceed up towards the Dublin House.  Please join if you can.

• July 22, 2013, at the NYPL / Mid-Manhattan Branch