Lights Out 2024: Signs We Lost This Year

Welcome to the New York Neon Blog’s fourteenth annual roundup of lately-departed neon signs in New York City.  Neon has been a hot topic here in recent weeks, with New York Magazine, the NY Post and the New York Times all running stories spurred in whole or in part by the NYC Landmarks Commission’s approval of a proposed LED retrofit for the famous NBC Studios marquees at Rockefeller Center (more on this below).  

This last development prompted me to tally-up some sad statistics related to my study of these signs and their disappearance. Preservationist Theodore Grunewald asked how many of the signs featured in my book New York Neon are still around. The answer: of 157 signs featured, just 83 survive today, meaning about half have disappeared. This is more or less consistent with another sad statistic: of some 550 signs that I tracked down and photographed in New York since 2006, my notes show about 300 remaining - a little over 50 percent.  For John Freeman Gill at the Times I was able to provide a still more startling statistic: of 73,539 outdoor electric signs permitted for installation in Manhattan between the years 1923 and 1955, only about 150 survive today. This means that a sign installed during that period would have a 0.2% percent chance of surviving to the year 2025.  Every old neon sign in Manhattan today is something that has survived against those odds. 

With this annual tally clocking in at about a dozen or more signs added to the gone-forever list every year, perhaps the most critical takeaway here is that those of us who value these signs as a part of the landscape had better make the most of every minute we've got left with them. 

Apollo Theater, 253 W125th St., Harlem, Manhattan (1940)

It's especially painful when one of the city's most iconic signs turns up on this list: the instantly recognizable sign and marquee of Harlem's Apollo Theatre on 125th Street aren't going anywhere, but the theater's ownership has sought and obtained the blessing of the city's Landmarks Commission to replace their classic red neon tubing with plastic LEDs. The sign and marquee have retained their current appearance since they were installed here in place of earlier incandescent bulb signage back in 1940. The 1940 signs were replaced around 2006 as part of a thorough restoration of the theater itself. Under the Commission's watchful eye, extremely faithful facsimiles were made to replace the old signs (although the marquee's movable-type panels made way for LED screens). The Commission's sign-off on the proposed LED replacement signals a dark future for neon's place as a fixture of the streetscape. More on this below. 

White Horse Tavern, 567 Hudson St., Greenwich Village, Manhattan (1946)

One of the more stomach-turning neon losses we've witnessed came this past May, when the famous White Horse Tavern on Hudson Street quietly took down the sign that had hung over its door since 1946 and replaced it with an LED-lit approximation. One of the oldest continuously operating bars in the city, the White Horse (or course) is known for its association with giants of the New York "beat" scene of the 1950s, the very writers whose work helped to immortalize the place of neon in the culture. The tavern sits in a designated Landmark District, so the city's Landmarks Commission is supposed to review such changes in signage, however it appears the owners went ahead with the swap-out without the Commission's approval. The Commission meanwhile appears to have willingly relinquished its enforcement duties in the matter, although it's unclear whether the agency would have objected even if it had been consulted. The LED sign appears to be the work of the same agents of neon doom that ruined the Old Homestead Steakhouse signs up the street in 2022.  The old sign meanwhile is displayed like a dead animal in the bar's storefront. Its absence from the streetscape is a hole punched in the shrinking heart of the neon city. 

Smith's Bar, 701 Eighth Avenue, Hell's Kitchen, Manhattan (1954)

Just before Thanksgiving, the neighborhood news site w42st.com was among a number of sources to report on the death of Smith's Bar, the erstwhile 8th Avenue dive just west of Times Square. A retail cannabis dispensary is set to take its place.  Smith's was about the last remnant of midcentury storefront signage - neon or otherwise - to survive from the down-and-out Taxi Driver days of this once gritty stretch. In fact the sign scored a brief cameo in the closing credits of Martin Scorsese's landmark film of 1976. By that time, Smith's and other signs like it were already piquant vestiges of an earlier era. Records at the Buildings Department indicate a 1954 installation date for the bar's razzle-dazzle assemblage of storefront signage, which shone out from the northwesterly corner of 8th Ave and West 44th Street for 70 years before going dark earlier this year. The bar had an earlier brush with death when it closed abruptly back in 2014, but reopened early the next year under the auspices of Skip Panettiere, an ex-firefighter and father of actress Hayden Panettiere. Smith's interior has been gutted and the signs began to disappear piecemeal in December - word on the street is they've been snapped up by the New York Sign Museum.  

(Photo: Nick McManus)

Subway Inn, 1154 Second Avenue, Upper East Side, Manhattan (1950, c. 1955)

The Subway Inn actually appeared in the 2014 edition of this series when it was displaced from its longtime home at 60th and Lex, where it had resided since 1937 (the building was later demolished, it's still an empty lot ten years later).  The bar subsequently managed to transplant itself - neon and all - two blocks east to Second Ave. But old businesses, like old trees, seldom seem to survive such transplants: a few years later the bar (and its restored fascia sign, c. 1955) moved again, this time to a new storefront on the same block. This second relocation attempt seemed doomed from the start: earlier this month, the management announced the bar's closing on Facebook, citing "bureaucratic obstacles put in place by the New York State Liquor Authority" and "a shift in the way people live, work, and spend their time." They've vowed to relocate again - and to take their neon mascot with them. 

The Playpen / 687 Eighth Avenue, Manhattan (c.1990)

The departure of Eighth Avenue's landmark neon nude has dealt what may be the final, fatal blow to whatever remained of the public face of Times Square grit.  The sign wasn't particularly old, but it had become the ultimate standard bearer for many a sleazy landmark before it.  The Playpen's neon naked lady seems to have first appeared circa 1990, when she took the place of the old changeable letter panel on the marquee of an adult movie theater known as the Playpen, near Eighth Avenue and 44th Street.  About ten years later, our heroine packed her bags and moved a few doors down to crown the storefront of a sex shop at 687 Eighth Ave. (Her place on the theater marquee was taken by a neon skyline, complete with WTC silhouette.) In 2016 developers razed the Playpen Theater (an especially handsome old moviehouse that had opened as the "Ideal" back in 1915 - Shake Shack is there now).  The Playpen name then followed our lovely ladyfriend down the block to 687, where both remained until earlier this year.  

Loft Candies, 88 Nassau St., Lower Manhattan (c.1950s)

The saga of this sign on Nassau Street in Lower Manhattan is a story unto itself - and in fact it has been the subject of four dedicated blog posts here in years past.  An important surviving circa-1950s installation for the chain candy retailer Loft's, the neon had been hidden under later signage for decades. The closing of the storefront's longtime latterday occupant - a certain Lilly's cut-rate dress emporium - dramatically revealed the older signage back in 2016. Miraculously, the storefront's next occupant - a downtown outpost of the Two Boots Pizza chain - not only announced that it would keep the old sign, but hired the experts at Let There Be Neon to refurbish and relight it. Against all the odds, the future seemed bright for this rediscovered neon landmark.

Alas, it was not to be: amid rumors of financial difficulties, the pizza joint abandoned the project a year or so later, however not before the restored sign was reinstalled here.  After several more years of inactivity, a new tenant for the storefront emerged recently, but sadly the Loft's sign has finally vanished from Nassau Street once and for all. The good news is that the sign is in the safe hands of the sign shop that restored it, which reports that it may one day shine again.

J.J. Hats / "Stetson," 310 Fifth Ave., Midtown Manhattan (c. 2015)

J.J. Hat Center, on Fifth Ave. in the shadow of the Empire State Building, advertises itself as "New York's Oldest and Most Iconic Hat Shop."  For a long time, it had one of Fifth Ave's most iconic signs, too, if not quite the oldest: the shop's neon herald emblazoned with the script logo of the Italian hatmaker Borsalino was a familiar site for years before it disappeared c. 2015.  The sign's replacement came in the form of a handsome new neon sign for Stetson, but now this too has vanished, replaced with a garden variety, back-lit, plastic-faced fascia sign. No one is tipping their hat. 

Hotel Roger Smith 501 Lexington Ave., Midtown Manhattan (c.1930s)

Back in the days of long-distance travel by train in this country, the giant sign of the Hotel Roger Smith - five stories tall - was meant to be spotted by freshly-arrived travelers emerging onto Lexington Avenue from Grand Central Terminal.  A careful study of this sign revealed a slight incongruity in its lettering, the “ROGER SMITH” text being a bit more squinched than “HOTEL.”  This wasn't just an optical illusion: the city's c. 1940 tax photo shows that the sign had previously been lettered to advertise the Roger Smith's predecessor, an establishment known as the Hotel Winthrop.  Further digging yields that the then-growing Roger Smith chain swallowed up the Winthrop just before the 1939 World's Fair. The new management probably had the sign re-lettered shortly after the tax photo was taken. Google Streetview shows the sign still in place in 2019; it disappeared in a shroud of scaffolding soon thereafter. This year the scaffolding came down to reveal the sign gone the way of all flesh. 

Towne Cafe, 1418 Ave. Z, Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn (1954)

The Towne Cafe lay hidden in plain sight on Avenue Z in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, the outer-borough neighborhood watering hole from central casting. Buildings Department records suggest a 1954 installation date for its lovely vertical sign and that sounded about right from the look of the place.  Google Streetview images show it alive and well through 2019, but shuttered by 2021, an apparent victim of the pandemic. The sign hung on at least through 2022, but vanished by 2024, by which time the building was gutted and given over to a suggestively-named cannabis shop called the "Smokey Joint."  

Chase Manhattan Bank, 260 Broadway, Williamsburg, Brooklyn (c.1930s)

This giant roof sign greeted riders on the elevated tracks of the BMT subway as they rolled into Brooklyn by way of the old Williamsburg Bridge. Exactly when the sign first appeared here is unclear, but the city's ever helpful tax photos show that it pre-dated the advent (in 1955) of "The Chase Manhattan Bank.” Before that, it had been lettered to advertise "The Bank of the Manhattan Company," the Chase predecessor founded by Aaron Burr back in 1799.  The bank branch below the sign seems to have vacated years ago; the roof sign held on until it finally disappeared sometime between 2021 and 2022.  

Roebling Liquors. 311 Roebling St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn (1945)

Roebling’s vertical LIQUORS sign was perhaps the earliest surviving work by the prolific Salzman Sign Co. of Brooklyn, buildings department records indicating a 1945 date for its installation here.  The neighborhood liquor emporium recently moved from its longtime home on Roebling Street in Williamsburg to a smaller storefront around the corner, sadly losing its neon in the process. The Salzman Sign Co. had been founded by Nathan Salzman, an immigrant from Russia, c.1930.  Salzman advertised that he’d already been in the business for fifteen years by then; his company lasted into the 1970s.  Salzman’s signs can still be found all over New York, its best known work being the supremely fantastic fascia signs of Nathan’s Famous on Surf Ave. in Coney Island. 

Roebling Liquors traces its establishment to 1935. Its recent move was not its first: the city’s c.1940 tax photos show it at another address two doors down from the one it just vacated, with an earlier generation of neon signage over its storefront. Its just-vanished vertical sign was originally part of a spectacular two-story neon facade that likely appeared with the business’s move to 311 Roebling circa 1945. The surviving sign featured inventive streamlined stainless steel finial and pendant details that made it particularly likable. It reportedly survives with an out of state collector. 

Wu Han Restaurant, 1533 Pitkin Ave., Brownsville, Brooklyn (c. 1950)

One of the city's more stalwart neon holdouts, this especially fantastic blade sign presided over a busy stretch of Pitkin Ave. here on the Brownsville-Crown Heights border long after the disappearance of the neighborhood Chinese restaurant it advertised.  Tax photos at the Municipal Archives show the Wu Han "Tea Garden" already here before WWII, holding its own with earlier neon signage on a spectacularly neon-studded thoroughfare that must have been a sight to behold by night. The Wu Han appears to have vanished by the time of the city's 1980s tax photo, but its sign held on until it finally disappeared sometime between 2021 and 2022.  This was the last known surviving work of the Cornell Sign Co. of Brooklyn. 

"Restaurant" (Xin Long Chinese), 1845 Eastern Pkwy., Brooklyn (c.1950s)

This handsome if generic vertical "RESTAURANT" sign was a midcentury classic, likely pre-dating the Chinese restaurant that operated out of the storefront below it in recent years.  Google Streetview images indicate that both the sign and the restaurant made way for a residential conversion of the storefront way-on-away-back in 2015.

Kingston Lounge, 120 Kingston Ave., Crown Heights, Brooklyn (c.1945)

One of New York's best vintage storefront tableaus survived at the corner of Kingston and Bergen in Crown Heights Brooklyn, at an abandoned building that had once housed a jazz club called the Kingston Lounge.  In total ruin for years, the sign and the extra-fabulous vitrolite-clad storefront below it inspired a blog calling itself “The Kingston Lounge,” dedicated to "Guerilla Preservation and Urban Archeology - Brooklyn and Beyond.” Writing of the place that had inspired him, blog founder Ian Ference reported that the Kingston had opened in 1944: “the ‘Kingston Lounge Wine & Dine Restaurant & Cocktail Lounge,’ as its falling marquee proclaims, was a neighborhood staple for decades. In the 1980s, it fell into decline ... by 2001, it was deserted. During its heyday, the Kingston attracted ... musicians as renowned as Kenny Dorham, Randy Weston, Max Roach, Sahib Shihab & Matthew Gee. In fact, Dorham, Gee, Cecil Payne and company recorded a 1960 album ... on which the second track is entitled ‘Kingston Lounge,’ in honor of the place where they practiced and jammed out, entertaining the block until the wee hours.” 

In 2016 the Landmarks Commission approved a proposal that involved restoring the whole art deco storefront facade, however somehow this never came to pass. Google Streetview shows the facade stripped around 2020 and blocked from view by a plywood barricade soon after.  The barricade came down this year to reveal the building beautifully restored, but with a swish historicist storefront that has nothing on its streamlined predecessor.

Hotel Caribe and the Hamilton Hgts. Hotel, 511-515 W145th St., Hamilton Heights, Manhattan (c. 1950)

The twin signs heralding this pair of uptown hotels vanished along with the businesses they advertised sometime in the past two years. Journalist Nick Garber reported for Patch back in 2022 that the “AIDS Healthcare Fdn paid $17 million to buy the two 145th St. hotels and turn them into low-income housing … AHF was drawn to the hotels because they were ‘very popular,’ with well maintained facilities, happy clients and staff, and clean buildings.”  In fact Google Streetview reveals that the signs had yielded to modern LED replacements a good ten years ago, but now even the LED signs are gone.  

Neon signs for hotels have held a particular niche in the popular psyche, as explored in a series of posts at this blog in years past. With the disappearance of this pair of signs on 145th Street and of the big Roger Smith sign on Lexington Ave. (see above), this leaves just the Empire and the Chelsea as Manhattan’s last hotel neon holdouts.  

O'Reilly's Pub and Restaurant, 54 W31st St., Midtown, Manhattan (c.1975)

Despite its prominent location and the fantastic neon swing sign over its door, O’Reilly’s seemed somehow never to get the attention it deserved.  This was the note emphasized by writer Robert Simonson in a short write-up on the place published at Eater back in 2011. “O'Reilly's has been O'Reilly's since 1975. Before that it was called Joyce's for another forty years,” he wrote: “In a region of Manhattan that changes constantly, it feels like a cornerstone as solid as nearby Keens Steak House, albeit one far less honored.”  The bar’s closure at some point during the pandemic seems to have gotten lost in the shuffle of all the other bad news of that time. The sign disappeared sometime after 2022. 

AND THE ONES TO WATCH NEXT YEAR

Louis Zuflacht, 154 Stanton Street, Lower East Side, Manhattan (1942)

Louis Zuflacht, a longtime Lower East Side purveyor of "Smart Clothes" at the corner of Stanton and Norfolk Streets, vanished long ago. Its neon ghost sign has lingered for decades, but now it too seems poised to vanish, as the old lowrise building above the storefront has been listed for sale as a teardown. 

NBC Studios, 30 Rockefeller Center, Manhattan (c.1935)

This December, our illustrious Landmarks Preservation Commission gave its blessing to Rockefeller Center's proposal to toss the neon from the historic NBC Studios / Rainbow Room marquees at 30 Rock in favor of plastic LED replacements. No fewer than seven advocates testified at the Commission’s public hearing in hopes that the agency, which has purview over just a small handful of historic neon signs, might come to bat for this one, but the Commission voted seven-to-one to allow the change.  More on this in a forthcoming post, if I can muster the strength. 

POSTSCRIPT: ONE BRIGHT SPOT

(Photo: Mike Carsten)

Casa Oliveira, 98 Seventh Ave. South, Greenwich Village, Manhattan (1935, c.1950)

Casa Oliveira, longtime liquor store on Seventh Ave. in Greenwich Village, nearly made the “ones to watch” list this year.  Its signs had been dark since the business shuttered about a year ago.  “It has been an honor serving the WV since 1935. Our time has come to move on. Thank you to our wonderful loyal customers - you made it great,” wrote the owners in a farewell message posted on Instagram. But then last week @MCarsten shared photos (also on Instagram) showing the signs aglow again: the space now houses “Officina del Bere,” an offshoot of chefs Rita Sodi and Jody Williams’ neighboring Bar Pisellino. The new business specializes in “Italian kitchen provisions, local seasonal produce, and tools in the art of cooking.”  Its storefront boasts two generations of classic neon, the older of which (as reported here back in 2011) “appeared here in 1935, just two years after the repeal of prohibition, to mark the spot of a liquor store run by one A. Rossano ... The store's porcelain enamel fascia sign came later, probably around 1950, when the business was taken over by a certain Mr. Oliveira.” Tanti auguri to the new enterprise. 

NOTES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The dates provided above are meant to indicate the year of the respective sign's installation; where precise years are given without being qualified with a "c.," the information is usually based on DOB records. Thanks to Mike Carsten, Dave Barnett, Jeff Friedman, Wayne Heller and others for their help with this post. 

Lights Out 2023: Signs We Lost This Year

It's that time again, time to shake the dust of this old blog and tally up another year's worth of New York's neon losses.  This year's death toll is a bit higher than that of previous years, sadly, perhaps a measure of what seems to be an intensified development frenzy that has come to grip the city in the wake of the pandemic slowdown. As with previous editions of this post, the list below includes some signs that may have disappeared prior to 2023 but whose loss only came to light (if that's the right word) this year. 

Garry Jewelers, 474 Fifth Av., Park Slope, Brooklyn (c. 1961)

This perfectly-preserved sign and storefront sat more or less abandoned for a decade since the mom-n-pop jewelry store within finally fizzled out sometime around 2010. As hopes dimmed that the place might somehow spring back to life, admirers remained optimistic that a new tenant might come along and seize on the unique retro charm of Garry’s jewel of an intact midcentury commercial facade, one of the best surviving specimens of its type anywhere in the five boroughs.  Alas, Brooklyn correspondent Wayne Heller passed by in February 2023 only to find the place fully gutted and its postcard-perfect storefront completely replaced in anticipation of a new tenant that had yet to appear. 

Neil’s Coffee Shop, 961 Lexington Ave., Upper East Side, Manhattan (c. 1966)

If a place like Neil's Coffee Shop was ever going to disappear, surely it would have done so a long time ago: anything that had survived this long must be here to stay... or so many of us naively hoped.  For all its longevity (it had reportedly opened in 1940) Neil's proved no more enshrined than the most disposable parts of the city's ephemeral landscape when the grim reaper came calling early in 2023. Eater reported that the restaurant owed as much as $1 million in unpaid rent, and the venerable diner met its ignominious end at the hand of city marshals this past April. Its sign was carted off to parts unknown not long thereafter.  The storefront remains vacant at press time. 

Alleva Dairy, 188 Grand Street, Little Italy, Manhattan (1953)

One of the year's more painful losses came this past March when Little Italy's stalwart Alleva Dairy called it quits after a 130-year run, citing an inability to keep up with the rent. The Times reported that the landlord offered to forgive more than $600,000 in unpaid bills if the owners packed up and left quietly.  Alleva did just that, taking its vertical neon blade sign (installed in 1953) along with it. The management announced that the age-old cheese shop would reopen at a new location in Lyndhurst, New Jersey (a move similar to that of Brooklyn's Queen Marie Italian Restaurant, which decamped to Bernardsville previously), but this seems not to have come to pass as of year's end. 

Jack’s Toy Center, 909 Kings Highway, Midwood, Brooklyn (c. 1955)

Having outlived the business it advertised by decades (Jack's had already vanished by the 1980s, per the city's tax photo archive), it seemed the winds of attrition might just have forgotten about this relic sign on King's Highway in Midwood, Brooklyn. No such luck: the sign is now listed on eBay and can be yours for the princely sum of $3,000, if you can coax it down from the second floor perch where it's kept a watchful eye on generations of Brooklynites passing below. 

Old Homestead Steakhouse, 56 9th Ave., Chelsea, Manhattan (c. 1945)

Reportedly founded in 1868 as the Tidewater Trading Post, the Old Homestead bills itself as the "oldest continuously operating steak house in the US," and until last year it had one of the oldest signs in New York to back up the claim. The restaurant survives, but its fantastic luminous beacon - installed c. 1945 in place of an earlier neon sign - has been stripped of its neon and slathered in uninspiring LED sign faces, its owners apparently tired of paying to keep the old contraption alight. 

Pioneer Supermarket, 289 Columbus Ave., Upper West Side, Manhattan (c. 1960)

With its big bold italic letters blasting their neon glow out across Columbus Ave., the Pioneer's unmistakable sign was a favorite landmark among admirers of New York's vanishing midcentury storefronts.  The ancient supermarket is with us still, but its uniquely lovely neon is no more.  The West Side Rag reported on the sign's disappearance back in March.  At the time, the Pioneer's management reassured concerned neighbors that the sign was merely out for repairs, but those proved empty promises when a plastic-faced, LED simulacrum appeared in place of its great neon predecessor a few weeks later. 

Kessler’s Liquors, 23 E 28th St., Midtown, Manhattan (1959)

Kessler's landmark LIQUORS sign was a New York classic, with its generic copy rendered in workaday pre-Helvetica letterforms traced in stainless steel channel letters mounted to a stainless steel raceway, this was among the last of hundreds of signs like it that once could be found all over town. Forced to move to a smaller storefront down the block a few years back, the old wine shop took its sign with it, moving its bold neon letters inside over the checkout counter. Sadly Kessler's reboot was not to last: the shop and sign have now vanished, leaving nary a trace behind. 

Roșie O’Grady, 800 Seventh Av., Midtown, Manhattan (c. 1981)

Though it looked like something that might have been around since the 1930s, Rosie O'Grady's landmark projecting neon only appeared on this prominent corner five blocks above Times Square after the Irish Bar set up shop here in the 1980s. After more than forty years, Rosie's seemed as well ensconced on Broadway as any of the marquee names that frequented the place.  Yet the restaurant closed abruptly in July amid reports of a dispute with its landlord, S.L. Green Realty. Its sign, which seemed an entrenched part of the landscape here, is indeed gone now. Late reports hint at an impending rebirth for Rosie's at a new location around the corner.

Heartland Brewery, 127 W43rd St., Times Square, Manhattan (c. 1995)

Not an especially old sign, Heartland's bold vertical herald was a modern classic, peering out over West 43rd Street just east of Times Square. The sign and restaurant both did a disappearing act in the wake of the pandemic; some decent new neon has lately appeared in its place.

New Amsterdam Theatre, 214 W42nd St., Midtown, Manhattan (1937, alterations 1955)

The New Amsterdam is alive and well but its marquee is neon no more.  Originally opened in 1904, the art nouveau theater's streamlined neon vertical sign appeared when the establishment went from being a live stage theater to showing movies in 1937 (the sign underwent further modifications in the mid-1950s).  As alterations to the original facade, the sign and marquee might have vanished when Disney funded a lavish restoration of the venue in the 1990s, but happily they were kept and restored. They survive today, one of the rare electric signs of any kind that enjoys the protection of city Landmark designation, though this did not keep the sign's animated neon from quietly making way for fake neon LEDs, a development that does not bode well for the future of neon more broadly. 

Papaya King, 179 E 86th St., Yorkville, Manhattan (1964)

For all its charm as one of New York's most appealing neon storefronts, it didn't take a real estate whiz to know that the writing was on the wall for Yorkville's 90-year old hotdog stand known as the Papaya King, whose storefront occupied a tiny, one-story building situated on some of the most expensive scraps of land in the country. The bell finally tolled for the King's modest abode this year when plans for a massive new high-rise were announced for its site. Founded by Gus Poulos back in 1932, the Papaya King had been at its most recent address since 1964. The tiny hotdog shop reportedly found a new home just across Third Avenue, but more than six months after it closed the business has yet to reopen. Its wonderful sign, which figured into a number of previous posts at this blog, remains above the empty storefront at press time, a desecrated husk. 

Starlite Delicatessen, 212 W44th St., Times Square, Manhattan (c. 1984)

Not neon, but deserving of an honorable mention here nonetheless, the Starlite Deli's backlit plexiglas "privilege sign" was typical of the kinds of signs that displaced neon in the streetscape after the 1960s. A small placard mounted to one side marked this as the work of Brooklyn's Salzman Sign Co., once one of the most prominent neon shops in New York, its surviving works including the great assemblage of neon fascia signs at Nathan’s Famous in Coney Island.  Though the sign looks like it could be older, Starlite reportedly opened in 1984; it ended its 39 year run with the retirement of its longtime owner, Jung Min Kim, in April 2023.  The sign itself has been preserved at the New York Sign Museum in Brooklyn. 

American Neon, Lefcourt Empire Bldg., 989 Sixth Av., Midtown, Manhattan (c. 1927)

Also not neon but undeniably worthy of mention on this list, the painted ghost sign of the American Neon company vanished this year along with the 21-story Lefcourt Empire building, from whose side it had presided over the north end of Herald Square since the late 1920s.  A relic of a long-vanished chapter in the early history of New York's neon business, American Neon emerged as a competitor to the Claude Neon-affiliated franchises that attempted to maintain a monopoly on the neon business around the world, until the latter company's critical patent finally expired in the early 1930s. In its brassy bid to break Claude's stranglehold on the business, American Neon built a giant neon "airplane beacon" atop developer A.E. Lefcourt's new tower at 37th St. and Sixth Av., which reportedly could be seen for hundreds of miles. Neither the beacon nor the company lasted more than a few years, but it left a subtle mark that endured in the palimpsest of New York's commercial necrology until this year. 

AND THE ONES TO WATCH NEXT YEAR ...

T-Bone Diner, 107-48 Queens Blvd., Forest Hills, Queens (c. 1963)

Opened in the 1930s, Queens' T-Bone Diner quietly closed up shop back in 2022. Its great neon roof sign had been a neighborhood landmark since replacing earlier neon signage during a modernization sometime circa-1963.  Patch has reported on a move afoot to revive the venerable eatery, but as of December 2023 the place remains dark. 

Roebling Liquors, 311 Roebling St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn (1945)

Word on the neon street is that the new owners of this long-time Williamsburg liquor retailer are looking to unload their beautiful stainless steel vertical sign, a 1945 work of the Salzman Sign Co. of Brooklyn (see Starlite Deli blurb above). 

Theatre 80 St Marks, 80 St Marks Pl., Lower East Side, Manhattan (c. 1964)

After a long string of ominous news reports regarding the future of the East Village's beloved "Theatre 80," the small off-Broadway venue finally succumbed this past April, following a prolonged dispute with creditors. The theater's longtime owner, Lorcan Otway, whose family ran the place from the time it opened in 1964, has continued to pursue various means of refloating the business but the building was reportedly sold in in May and the marquee remains dark at press time. 

Lights Out 2022: Signs We Lost This Year

The New York Neon blog may be clinging to life, just barely, with new posts once a year.  The same cannot be said however of the signs and businesses featured below, which are gathered here for our annual roundup of neon landmarks dead and gone from the landscape.  (As usual, some of these may have disappeared before 2022 but their loss only came to my attention this year.) 

Mike's Diner, 2237 31st St, Astoria, Queens 

Originally opened in 1928, Mike's Diner in Astoria this year sadly joined the ranks of businesses Google lists as "permanently closed." The Astoria Post reports that the business shuttered in late summer amid a rent dispute between the landlord and the restaurant's operators. While its modest building had been updated several times, the sign appeared to be the product of an early 1960s makeover. The city's circa-1940 tax photo shows a previous sign hanging outside a real showstopper of a classic streamlined diner building whose spirit lived on here until the business ended a 94-year run this year.  Historic photo is via the NYC Municipal Archives.

Queen Marie Italian Restaurant, 84 Court St, Brooklyn

Somewhat overshadowed by the loss of a certain other Queen this year, downtown Brooklyn's Queen Marie restaurant quietly decamped from its longtime home on Court Street early in 2022.  Opened in 1958, the Queen Marie had been a neighborhood staple for generations. The restaurant has since been reincarnated under the same ownership as "Ristorante MV" in Bernardsville, NJ. Brooklyn's loss is Jersey's gain. 

Brooks Atkinson Theatre, 256 W 47th St, Manhattan

The former Mansfield Theatre on 47th St. in the Theater District gained this lovely sign circa 1960, when it was renamed for veteran New York Times theater critic Brooks Atkinson.  The sign vanished this year when the theater was renamed again, this time for the late singer and actor Lena Horne, eminent lady of the stage and now the first African American woman to be honored with a theater bearing her name. I know embarassingly little about Atkinson, but whoever lettered the sign that bore his name had some of the best neon penmanship I'd seen anywhere.  Ms. Horne's name is now rendered in simple block letters that are nice enough but leave us wanting for the jaunty pizazz of their predecessors.  For the record, they're rendered in genuine neon. 

Ernst & Young, 5 Times Square, Manhattan

Not especially old, but a bona fide New York neon landmark in the traditional sense: the monumental Ernst & Young sign loomed over the south end of Times Square for about 20 years, from the time the giant building from which it hung was built in 2002.  Rising up nearly a 30-story stretch of the tower's east facade, the sign enjoyed an unobstructed vista down Seventh Avenue that allowed it to be seen from Greenwich Avenue, a mile and a half down the island.  

Blarney Stone, 410 8th Ave, Manhattan

The Blarney Stone bar by Penn Station and MSG had shed pretty much all of its bad-old-days trappings in a lobotomizing makeover sometime circa 2004, during which its hallmark deli case, tattered Naugahyde bar stools and ancient terrazzo floor all got cleared out in favor of an "Irish Pub" themed interior cobbled together from what looked like stock moldings from Home Depot. The bar's old sign, however, remained here to testify that this Blarney was in fact the real deal, an authentic, card-carrying survivor of the umpteen Blarney Stones that once existed all over Manhattan in decades past.  Alas, the old sign vanished this summer to make way for a schlocky LED approximation of its predecessor. The scene inside the joint however is otherwise a pretty compelling throwback to the Blarneys of old (caveat - not on game nights).  Of thirty-some known Blarney Stones that once existed in Manhattan, this is one of just two that remain.  

Flats Fix (née Live Bait), 14 E 23rd St, Manhattan

When a "for rent" sign went up over the storefront of the former Live Bait bar on 23rd Street at Madison Square during the pandemic, I thought surely it would be just a matter of time before some savvy restaurateur came along to revive this old space and light those great old signs up again for all of us to enjoy.  I soon found myself choking back the vomit rising in my throat when I rounded a corner early this year only to find the signs felled and the storefront gutted to make way for a new Popeyes fried chicken franchise.  The old Live Bait signage (the bar was known as "Flat Fixed" in its last days) made for one of the more vibrant vintage storefronts anywhere in New York, though its exact provenance eluded me. Its owners, the same group that ran everyone's favorite Coffee Shop down on Union Square, never responded to requests for an interview. The BAR RESTAURANT fascia sign appeared to have come from somewhere else; traces of older neon signage could be seen hidden behind it. Buildings Dept records indicated that the vertical BAR sign, which beamed out in three glorious directions, had been installed in 1940 for an establishment known as the Metro Tavern.  Hopefully someone salvaged those signs to shine again one eday.

Patriot Saloon, 110 Chambers St, Manhattan

Speaking of Blarney ... the Patriot Bar opened in 2003, inheriting its space (and its vertical BAR sign) from a certain Blarney Cove bar that had occupied this address for years prior (the storefront actually housed Pearl Paint before that).  The Patriot's BAR sign had already disappeared a few years back when a new residential building went up next door. The Tribeca Citizen reported this past summer that the bar itself has now followed its neon herald into the great beyond.    

Holland Bar, 532 9th Ave, Manhattan

The Holland Bar and its sign were both survivors, having been deposed from their previous home in the Hotel Holland on 42nd Street some time circa 1987.  The bar found a new home around the corner on 9th Ave and 39th Street, but when sign proved too big to fit over the tiny storefront, the owners found a spot for it inside above the back bar.  Festooned in Christmas lights, it presided over all sorts of proceedings at what became one of New York's more likable dive bars for another few decades until the old Holland quietly bowed out this year.  In the Neon Book I noted that the sign held the ashes of longtime regular Charlie O'Connor, who lay in repose in an urn nested between the letters "O" and "L."  Historic photo from an old postcard. 

79th Street Wine & Spirits, 230 W 79th St, Manhattan

For decades, this fantastic ensemble of liquor store signs stood on West 79th Street directly across from the flashing neon harp of the old Dublin House Bar, giving us a two-for-one neon special that made this otherwise ordinary Upper West Side block a place I always looked forward to seeing any time I happened to be up this way.  A crowdsourced funding campaign helped finance a loving restoration of the Dublin House sign a few years ago. Sadly that outpouring of affection across the street was lost on the proprietors of the liquor store, who junked their great fascia and vertical signs for plastic faced LED crap early in 2022.  

Forlini's, 93 Baxter St, Manhattan

The late, great Forlini's of Baxter Street was just about the last vestige of Little Italy below Canal Street.  A classic, unpretentious redsauce joint, its location near the downtown courthouses made it a go to for everyone from Manhattanites on jury duty to future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. Founded in 1944, its storefront boasted at least two generations of neon signage, the last of which covered its neon tubes behind red plexi.  Its demise was sealed when the Forlini family recently sold the building and bowed out of the restaurant business.  

National Jewer's Exchange, 2 W47th Street, Manhattan

New York's "diamond district," a one block stretch of West 47th Street between 5th and 6th Av's, is still a haunt for some of the more interesting signage left in Manhattan, but sadly its best sign - that for the National Jewelers Exchange - has finally bit the dust.  Something about this one always made it one of my favorites.  Its pre-Helvetica block letters, half of them slightly askew, its battered sheet metal box, really gave it the look of something that had seen it all.  It had been blocked by scaffolding and dark for years, but was still hanging in there until about a year ago, when the great old building off which it hung (along with the one next door) got themselves dates with the wrecking ball amid yet another stupid redevelopment project that we really don't need.   

World Telegram, 125 Barclay St., Manhattan

Speaking of large, handsome Art Deco office buildings being destroyed for stupid redevelopment projects that we don't need . . . New York's old World Telegram building in Lower Manhattan is being skinned at press time to make way for yet another glassy, soul crushing piece of junk, because, you know, New York needs more glassy, soul crushing pieces of junk.  The World Telegram's massive roof sign had already been gone for many years, but the big old steel framework that once held it aloft was still there, an interesting relic from a time when giant signs like this beamed out across the harbor from all directions.  The building below it was a lesser-known Art Deco gem designed by Howell & Thomas in 1930.  Its vibrant green terra cotta scored it a feature in Andrew Garn and Eric Nash's new book "New York Art Deco," published just this year. 

Eneslow Shoes, 2563 Webster Av, Bronx

Eneslow's ghost sign off Fordham Road in the Bronx was already a husk, its lettering having been pulled off years ago.  It made a great then-and-now study contrasted against a period photo loaned to me by Justin Langsner of the LaSalle Sign Co., who made this and the great Papaya King sign in Manhattan (see below).  Eneslow's ghost sign has finally vanished, but the fantastic old-school shoe retailer the sign advertised is actually with us still, at a new location over on 3rd Ave in Midtown Manhattan - one of NYC's best kept secrets and oldest retailers of any kind.   

AND THE ONES TO WATCH IN 2023

Papaya King, 179 East 86th St, Manhattan

It's almost hard to imagine there was ever a time when a little one story building could occupy a prominent Manhattan street corner without being eyed as a "development opportunity" yet for decades that's just how it was the NW corner of 86th and 3rd, where the erstwhile hotdog dispensary known as the Papaya King has been an Upper East Side landmark for nearly 60 years (and at a different address for another 30 years before that). At length, the corner seems finally poised for a major redevelopment - here's hoping that incredible sign finds a good home somewhere. 

Columbus Hardware, 852 Ninth Av., Manhattan.

Columbus Hardware relinquished its longtime home on 8th Ave in Hell's Kitchen last year, leaving its old sign behind.  The mom-n-pop hardware store lives on at its new address but the sign remains abandoned and awaiting its fate at the old storefront. 

Subway Inn, 1140 2nd Ave., Manhattan.

The venerable Subway Inn endured a successful transplant over to 2nd Ave and E60th St when developers plowed under its original home by Bloomingdale’s back in 2015.  The bar quickly took root at its new location - a rare success story, until the its new digs found themselves in another developer’s crosshairs in 2022. The bar closed this past summer and moved its sign to a new location up the block, but both storefronts remain empty at press time, leaving the future of one of Manhattan’s longest running watering holes (established 1937) very much in doubt.