S. & G. Gross Co. Inc.

S. & G. Gross, a pawn shop at 486 Eighth Avenue (just above Penn Station), always ranks highly on my list of favorite places in town.   I like its three-story porcelain enamel facade.  I like that it lends an element of noir-ish grit to an increasingly over-sanitized city.  And, of course, I like its neon sign, though I've never seen it come aglow.

S&G Gross, Loans, 486 8th Ave., Manhattan. (T. Rinaldi)

The sign is the centerpiece of the afore-mentioned three-story porcelain enamel facade, which is otherwise unadorned, apart from big white letters announcing S. & G. GROSS CO. INC., emblazoned over the storefront.  Such facades appeared across the country in the 1930s, very often with concomitant neon signs, as landlords or shop owners sought to modernize aging commercial buildings in American downtowns.

S&G Gross. (T.Rinaldi)

As I learned while researching the neon book, many of these modernizations appeared thanks to financial assistance from the federal government, which offered low interest loans through National Housing Act of 1934 as a way of stimulating the economy during the Great Depression.  The perplexing irony of these facades now is that many of us (myself included) who fawn over them today wince at the sight of similar alterations made in our own time.  Many of these great facades, now historic, obscure or obliterate even more historic facades beneath them. 

Cover from a catalog for Enameling Sheets issued by the Republic Steel Corp.  (Jester, 20th Century Building Materials / Library of Congress)

So typical are such facades of the 1930s that I always assumed the S. & G. Gross facade to be a product of that era.  But lo, what happens when we assume!  Turns out the Gross facade came quite a lot later: records at the Buildings Dept (DOB) indicate a surprisingly latter-day installation date of 1959, the handiwork of architects Telchin and Campanella.  

S&G Gross through the years. (NYC DOB)

As for the sign, the DOB dossier yielded no information (of course).  It did however serve up an unusually interesting evolutionary study of the little building from which it hangs.  Architectural drawings dated 1875, c. 1920 and 1959 provide snapshots in the life and times of this modest midtown address as it changed through the years, making the S. & G. Gross building a prime case study for many thousands of buildings like it across the city and providing a peek at what lies beneath that porcelain facade. 

 

Gross Loans sign, with maker's placard painted out. (T. Rinaldi) 

The sign, however, remained unattributed, until one day I noticed that the paint covering its maker's placard had receded just enough to reveal the telltale lettering of the Grauer Sign Co. of the Bronx.  Grauer's work also includes the sign over D'Aiuto's bakery three blocks down Eighth Ave, which appeared around the same time as the Gross storefront.  Gross and D'Aiuto occupy but one layer of the great palimpsest that is the urban landscape of New York.  Sadly, this particular layer seems to grow ever thinner as time goes by.  

S&G Gross Co. Inc. (T. Rinaldi)

SEE ALSO:

• A visit to S&G Gross by NYTimes writer Chris Grey back in 2009.
• More fun facts on S&G Gross from Walter Grutchfield at 14to42.

IN OTHER NEON NEWS:

• The Rchive, nos. 3 & 4 - neon typography gets its due at Paul Shaw Letter Design.
• After a brief scare apparently sparked by an anonymous comment on this blog, word that the Kentile sign is here to stay - for the time being, at least...

UPCOMING NYNEON TALKS:

• March 11, 2013, at the National Arts Club
• March 21, 2013, at the Friends of the UES Historic Districts
• July 22, 2013, at the NYPL / Mid-Manhattan Branch

VD

Gotham City Video, 687 8th Avenue. (T. Rinaldi)

Valentine's Day love, brought to you by the good folks at Gotham City Video.  Gotham City's heart was broken this time last year, so I couldn't include it in my VD post for 2012.  Happily, it's back in beating order this year.  There's hope for us all.

SEE ALSO (If you haven't already):

• My Valentine's Day post from last year


UPCOMING NYNEON TALKS:

• March 11, 2013, at the National Arts Club
• March 21, 2013, at the Friends of the UES Historic Districts
• July 22, 2013, at the NYPL / Mid-Manhattan Branch

To Fluoresce, Or Not To Fluoresce?

To fluoresce, or not to fluoresce?  This is the eternal question every true admirer of neon must eventually confront.  The difference between fluorescent (or phosphor-coated) tubes and non-coated neon tubes goes basically undetected by almost everyone outside the small cadre of neon practitioners, professionals and enthusiasts.  But once recognized, the two kinds of tubes are a world apart.


A burger joint on White Plains Road in the Bronx.  Pinkish tubes above demonstrate uniform glow of fluorescent/phosphor-coated neon; uncoated tubes below show the classic look of clear glass tubes.  (T. Rinaldi)
 
Up through the early 1930s, neon signs used clear or tinted glass tubes that offered a limited range of colors.  This changed in about 1933, when tubes lined with fluorescent or phosphorous coatings became available to sign makers.*

 
Display wall at Let There Be Neon.  The introduction of fluorescent/phosphor coated tubes gave neon shops a much wider range of colors from which to choose.  (T. Rinaldi)
 
I confess that I don't have a particularly great handle on the science involved here.  Scientists had long known of minerals that could be made to glow under the right conditions.  In the 1920s and 30s, researchers developed a means of applying a pulverized coating of these minerals to the inside of glass tubes used for neon signs.  When energized, both the gas within the tube and the applied layer of phosphorous minerals would come aglow. This innovation presaged the development of what are now known as fluorescent lamps, first introduced commercially by GE in 1938, which work on a similar principle.
 

Da-Nite Neon display ad from the 1940 Manhattan Classified Telephone Directory, featuring fluorescent tubes. (N-YHS)

The neon industry quickly embraced fluorescent coated tubes for two reasons.  First, they glowed more brightly than uncoated tubes.  Second and more significantly, the coatings could be made to glow in a range of colors.  New phosphorous colors have been continuously introduced since the 1930s, giving neon shops hundreds of colors and hues to choose from.  In the 1930s, the neon industry typically referred to coated tubes as "fluorescent."  The introduction of standard fluorescent lamps in 1938 muddled the nomenclature a bit, and now coated tubes for neon signs are more commonly referred to as "phosphorous" or "phosphor coated," probably to avoid confusion with off-the-shelf fluorescents.


Uncoated tubes on a c. 1930 Flexlume sign at the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati. (T. Rinaldi)

Despite the obvious advantages of fluorescent/phosphor-coated tubes, uncoated tubes never went away.  In fact, somewhat counterintuitively, neon professionals and enthusiasts almost universally seem to prefer their tubes uncoated.  While coated tubes glow in bright uniformity, uncoated tubes offer more visual complexity, glowing with more brilliance in the center of the tube where the gas is most dense, the candlepower dimming toward the periphery as the gas thins out.  From up-close, I sometimes find myself captivated by the light of an uncoated tube in rather the same way that one gazes into the open flame of a campfire.  Often, one can observe pulsing fluctuations in the light: the science, though less sophisticated than that at play in a coated tube, seems somehow more accessible.


Radio City marquees emerged from restoration with fluorescent tubes. (T. Rinaldi)

Customers, however, more often prefer the brightness and color range of coated tubes.  In sign restorations, the more marketable appeal of fluorescent tubes sometimes trumps historical accuracy.  This was the case in the restoration of the Radio City Music Hall marquee, whose red and blue tubes emerged from restoration some years ago somewhat brighter and more vivid than they had been originally, thanks to the use of fluorescent tubes that were not available when the sign was first installed in 1932. 


The Wonder Wheel. (T. Rinaldi)

In Coney Island however, two of New York's oldest signs retain their original look with clear glass tubes intact.  The tubes themselves have likely been replaced many times over, but the uncoated blue and red glow of the old-old signs at Nathan's and the Wonder Wheel are true to their period form, each installed around 1930.  (Later signs at both establishments make a good contrast with fluorescent tubes in various colors.) 


Nathan's. (T. Rinaldi)


With their unadulterated hues of classic red and blue, these two early signs demonstrate the look of the first generation of neon signs installed before the early 1930s.  As of February 2013, Nathan's remains closed in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Here's hoping they'll both come back to light in time for summer.
 
*In a 1976 article, William Anthony, Jr. cites a 1933 patent issued to a German inventor called Erich Koch; Arthur Bright, Jr.'s book The Electric-Lamp Industry of 1949 dates the innovation to a French patent issued to Jacques Risler in 1926.
 
FOR MORE, SEE:

• "Sales Advantages of Fluorescent Tubing," by J. Kurtz in Signs of the Times Magazine, April, 1938.
• "A Brief History of the Sign Industry," by William Anthony, Jr., in Signs of the Times Magazine, September, 1976.
• "The Electric-Lamp Industry," by Arthur Bright, Jr.,  1949.

IN OTHER NEON NEWS:
 
• Bad news from upstate NY, by way of Rob Yasinsac: In Canajoharie, the Beech-Nut sign, high point of interest on the New York State Thruway, is no more.
• And, via Project Neon and elsewhere, more bad news from Brooklyn: Hinsch's seems poised to bite the dust once and for all by the end of February. 

Newsweek Remembered

The cover of Newsweek's recent "last print issue" reminded me that it's time to file another installment in my series covering New York's on-premise roof signs.  Back in the dusty corners of my mind I still harbor one or two childhood memories of the old Newsweek sign, a midcentury fixture of the midtown skyline which graced the parapets of the magazine's old headquarters building, an art deco office tower at 444 Madison Avenue.

#LASTPRINTISSUE. (Newsweek)

Though the tower dates to the 1930s, the Newsweek sign only showed up around 1960, just before restrictive zoning ordinances kicked in that basically put an end to new illuminated roof signs in New York.  A blurb in the March 1960 issue of Signs of the Times magazine identifies the sign's designer as the redoubtable Douglas Leigh, the fabricator as Artkraft Strauss.  The letters were 8 and 10 feet high, made of stainless steel with faces of porcelain enamel, outlined in white neon.  An incandescent "jump clock" and temperature reading sat nested below the sign itself.

A handy graphic in the last print edition (which I impulse-bought at Duane Reade for a whopping seven dollars) shows that the sign employed the slab-serifed letterforms Newsweek adopted for its masthead in 1939, but curiously NOT the lettering as re-designed in 1949. (Newsweek)

Shortly after the Newsweek sign went up, new zoning ordinances prevented the installation of any more big roof signs like this, except where such signs were already in place.  Thus Newsweek passed the baton to New York Magazine, whose florid italic banner beamed out from 444 Madison in three directions from 1996 to 2009 (the west-facing sign, pictured on the Newsweek cover above, went bye-bye when a new tower blocked it from view).  

New York on a chilly evening in 2008. (T. Rinaldi)

The Newsweek sign lives on today, if only in spirit: New York Magazine yielded the spot to Burberry in 2009, the new sign making its debut with a ceremony held on the roof of the neighboring New York Palace hotel in May of that year.  Designed by Burberry creative director Christopher Bailey, the new sign was fabricated by Spectrum Signs of New York, the latter descended from New York's original Claude Neon outfit and the venerable Serota Sign Corp. 

 
444 Madison's new Burberry crown.  (T. Rinaldi)

Like the Newsweek sign that preceded it, Burberry glows in white neon - yes, real neon, not LEDs.  The incandescent display below meanwhile remains essentially unchanged from its installation in 1960.  The more things change, perhaps, the more they change the same.  Then again, while those old bulbs still broadcast the time and temp as they have for the past 53 years, a more telling barometer may be the sign above, whose most recent re-lettering speaks both to the travails of print media in a digital age and the proliferation of luxury retailers in the streets below.


New York remembered. (T. Rinaldi)

FOR MORE, SEE: 
• A timelapse video of the Burberry installation at spectrumsigns.com (click at lower right).
• NYT coverage of Burberry's neon debut (from 2009).
• Newsweek's farewell to print.

NEW YORK NEON IN THE NEWS:
• NYNeon featured in a "glowing" (sorry) review by Brendan Perring at SignLink-UK. 

STAY TUNED for upcoming NYNeon lecture engagements this spring, summer and fall.

Lenox Lounge

As promised, 2013 dawned with the legendary loss of the Lenox Lounge.  In the neon book, I described this establishment's "moderne porcelain-enamel and stainless-steel facade" as "possibly the finest surviving example of 1930s storefront architecture in New York."  It's gone now, along with the neon sign, ripped apart amid a truly sad tenant-landlord dispute that wrought the end of a business that had become a poster child for vanishing neighborhood institutions throughout New York.  

288 Lenox Avenue, Manhattan. (T. Rinaldi)

Details on the sign's specific origins evaded my research.  As one of the most compulsively-photographed old signs in the city, I really wanted to establish its provenance.  Alas, no dice.  All I could determine was that the sign was not, in fact, original to the business's oft-cited opening date of 1939, even though many of us really wished it was.  

The Lenox Lounge.  Candidate for favorite neon letterforms.  (T. Rinaldi)

Buildings Department records show that an electric sign of approximately the same size as the one that just disappeared was installed here in 1940. But the city's c. 1940 tax photos reveal that this sign was not the one that recently departed.  The records further indicate that the sign was installed for a business called the Lenox Bar-B-Q, not Lenox Lounge.  Sure enough, the grainy tax photo shows a big neon sign with LENOX BAR-B-Q set in very appealing prewar letterforms that would have looked great with the sleek deco storefront below. 

The Lenox Lounge.  (T. Rinaldi)

So where did the Lenox Lounge sign come from?  I didn't get anywhere with Alvin Reid, Sr., who ran the business from 1988 until its demise this week.  No one at Lenox Lounge ever returned my calls, and after one of Mr. Reid's bartenders tried to tell me I wasn't allowed to photograph his sign from the sidewalk, I somehow felt less enthusiastic about frequenting the place to try to ask in person.  (Fortunately I had visited once or twice before this episode - know your rights, photographers!)

Though the sign's delightfully eccentric lettering suggested something from the 1930s, we know it wasn't there as of 1940.  Though Mr. Reid cited an opening date of 1939, the New York Times has reported that the place opened in 1942.  It could have appeared then, but neon sign production in New York ground to a quick halt in that year due to the war, so it seems unlikely.  Details of the sign's assembly were consistent with others produced in New York during the 1950s, so I gave it "c. 1955" in the neon book and laid the matter to rest.

Can't see much in the crummy microfilm version of the city's c. 1940 tax photo of 288 Lenox, except that the sign wasn't there yet. (Municipal Archives)  

After its landlord reportedly slapped the Lounge with a 100 percent rent hike last year, the storefront and sign were promptly dismembered over New Year's, thus preventing any new tenant from capitalizing on the appeal of the historic neon-bedecked facade.  Mr. Reid has announced plans to re-open at another location, and has indicated that he took the sign with him, so perhaps the removed portions of the sign and storefront will re-appear one day.  Then again, if similar episodes from years past are any indication, likely not.  And even if they do, the magic smoke is gone.  Unless the little guys from Batteries Not Included come around, I'm filing this one with Humpty Dumpty.  

Hail and Farewell, Lenox Lounge.  (T. Rinaldi)

A FOOTNOTE:  One wonders who the sign and storefront facade legally belonged to.  Some business owners have told me that their signs belonged to their landlords.  But when the P&G Bar vanished in 2010, the Landmarks Commission issued a statement saying that it could not have prevented the sign's disappearance, because the sign belonged to the bar, not to the landmark-designated building.  

Lights Out 2012: Signs We Lost This Year

Sad to say, 2012 has been a rough year for New York's old neon signs.  Below is the list of the year's casualties (including a few that vanished in late 2011).  As is usually the case, most of the signs below disappeared along with old, independent businesses, places that had been neighborhood institutions for generations.  A few were lost thanks to Hurricane Sandy.  Put together with last year's losses, this brings us to a total of about 25 great old signs lost from New York in just the past two years.  And the prospectus for 2013 isn't much better (see below).

Maiman's Pharmacy, 821 Franklin Ave., Brooklyn

Silverescent Neon Sign Co., Installed c. 1951

An age-old corner drug store shuttered suddenly this summer.  The place had changed hands in the last few years, at which time the sign was beautifully restored.  Gone now.  More on the sign's provenance here. 

Crown Caterers, 4909 13th Ave., Brooklyn

Installed c. 1949

Sokol Bros. Furniture, 253 Columbia St., Brooklyn

Installed c. 1953

Store closed, sign removed, building demolished during the summer of 2012.  Sign reportedly salvaged for future re-installation.  

Walter's Hardware Co., 45-17 Broadway, Astoria, Queens

Salzman Sign Co., Installed c. 1955

M&G Southern Fried Chicken, 383 W125th St., Manhattan

Globe Neon Sign Corp., Installed c. 1966

M&G closed back in 2008 (shortly after making a cameo in the film Precious) but the sign hung around until about a year ago.  Gone now.

Eagle (ex-Earle) Theatre, 73-07 37th Road, Queens

Installed c. 1939

Originally the Earle, the marquee was re-lettered when this neighborhood theater re-branded itself the Eagle after a stint showing adults-only fare.  Later became a Bollywood house before finally closing around 2009.  Marquee removed as theater prepped for reported conversion to a "South Asian market and food court."  

Manganaro Foods & Restaurant, 488 9th Ave., Manhattan

Installed c. 1955

Legendary Hell's Kitchen Grosseria Manganaro shuttered in 2012 after 120 years of operation.  The space is now home to Tavola, one of New York's new high-end pizzerie, which has installed a new sign in the style of Manganaro's old one.

J. Leon Lascoff & Sons, 1209 Lexington Ave., Manhattan

Installed 1931

Lascoff's closed in the summer of 2012 after 113 years in business.  The sign had anchored this corner since 1931, making it one of the very oldest surviving neon signs in all of NYC.  Amid pleas for its preservation, the sign turned up for sale on Craigslist.  Re-listed after no-one ponied-up the $12k asking price, the sign finally vanished without a trace.

West Side Tavern, 360 W23rd St., Manhattan

Pioneer Sign Co., c. 1960

The West Side Tavern's old vertical BAR sign has made way for a very convincing facsimile.  

Colony Records, 1619 Broadway, Manhattan

Installed 2003-04

A new sign for an old business.  Colony was around long enough to have three great neon signs, of which this sadly has proved to be the last.

Starlight Lounge, 1086 Bergen Street., Brooklyn

Installed c. 1955

A belated obit for the great wrap-around signs of Crown Heights' Starlight Lounge, which closed in 2010. 

Shore Theatre, 1301 Surf Ave., Brooklyn

probably Artkraft Strauss Sign Corp., c. 1938

Blown to bits by Hurricane Sandy.  

Artkraft Strauss Plant, W57th Street and the West Side Highway, Manhattan

Demolished to make way for new residential development.  

AND THE ONES TO WATCH IN 2013: 

Lenox Lounge, 961 Lenox Ave., Manhattan

Installed c. 1960; future uncertain with the impending closure of this Harlem landmark business.

Mitchell's Wine & Liquor Store, 200 West 86th Street, Manhattan

Installed 1946 and 1949, vertical sign by Midtown Neon Sign Co.
Project Neon brought us the troubling news that this sign might be poised to needlessly vanish in the coming months due to a slated storefront renovation.  Sympathetic readers are encouraged to call, write, or stop by to entice the ownership to reconsider.  

Playland Arcade, 1508 Surf Ave., Brooklyn

Higger Sign Co., c. 1950

Already lost most of its letters; Playland Arcade demolition on hold while Coney deals with Hurricane Sandy clean-up.

Brite Buy Liquors, 11 Ave. of the Americas, Manhattan

Higger Electric Sign Co., c. 1959

Brite Buy has closed-up shop; what will happen to the sign remains to be seen.

Gallagher's Steak House, 228 W52nd Street, Manhattan
Installed c. 1946
Gallagher's is set to close in February 2012 after 85 years. 

Pearl Street Diner, 212 Pearl Street, Manhattan

Installed 1958
The Pearl Street Diner is one of the unfortunate legion of restaurants laid-low by Hurricane Sandy, still closed more than two months later.  Here's hoping they can get back on their feet sooner than later.    

Merry Neon Christmas 2012

Botticelli Shoes, at 5th Ave. and W53rd Street, Manhattan. (T. Rinaldi)