Shore Is Gone

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Point Pharamacy

Just before Christmas I ran across one of the most intriguing neon relics I've found in a long time, up in the Bronx.  While hustling down Hunts Point Avenue with some friends, en route to a Friday evening performance of "Los Nutcrackers: A Christmas Carajo" at the Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance, I spotted an anomaly perched over a ramshackle storefront across the street.  "Do we have time for me to run over and grab a photo of something?" I asked my friends humbly.  "After the show!" they grumbled collectively, and we shuffled on.

Point Pharmacy, relic sign by night.  (T. Rinaldi)

Three hours and several coquitos later I dragged my cohorts over to the Point Pharmacy, which occupies the rounded corner of a taxpayer building at the intersection of Hunts Point and Garrison Avenues.  Behold, the weatherbeaten ruin of one of New York's oldest surviving neon signs.  The neon tubes are gone, and the whole thing has been slathered in a coat of ill fitting blue paint.  Ghosts of its original lettering peek out from behind a modern sign panel installed over the old sign faces.

Point Pharmacy, relic sign by day. (T. Rinaldi)
 

Ruins have fascinated me for as long as I can remember (I co-authored a book on them some years ago).  Some kinds of structures make better ruins than others.  Neon signs, I have found, often make wonderful ruins.  To wit: Point Pharmacy.  Of course it would be nice to see the sign come alight, and its future would look a lot better had it been consistently maintained over the years.  But its neglected state testifies for all the years it has been here, all the changes it has seen over eight decades.  For those of us who admire it, the sign's weathered aesthetic lets us feel that we have discovered something, found some beauty that is lost on most people.

Symmetrical, stylized silhouette, at Point Pharmacy.  (T. Rinaldi)

Despite its decrepitude, this sign is one of the better examples of its period in New York today.  Its symmetrical, stylized silhouette is a hallmark of electric signs made through the mid-1930s.  Only a handful of others survive in the city (see Nathan's Famous, Lascoff Drugs, Rudy's Bar, and Casa Oliveira Liquors).  The sheet metal along the sides of the sign has deteriorated, but the sign faces, likely of porcelain enameled steel, have held up well.

Hunts Point Drug Co., c. 1940. High resolution versions of the city's 1940 tax photos can be purchased from the Municipal Archives at this link.  (Municipal Archives)

A quick search of records at New York's Department of Buildings (DOB) yields no clear installation date for this lovely lady.  Based on its style I suspect it showed up here around 1935; it is present and accounted for in the city's tax photo, taken c. 1940.  The microfilm is fuzzy, but the photo shows that this corner drug store has been here for at least 70 years. The original copy (lettering) appears to have read HUNTS POINT across the top, DRUGS down the center.

If I had a million dollar bill, I would call up the folks at the Point Pharmacy and ask if they'd let me have one of my new friends in the neon business give their great old sign the Statue of Liberty-quality restoration it deserves.  Those old sign faces could be cleaned and mounted to a new internal steel armature if needed, with new sheet metal around the edges, and, of course, new neon tubes (I'd go for red letters with a blue border, like the old Nathan's sign).  It's fantasy, I know, but - there's always next Christmas.

IN OTHER NEON NEWS:
• Check out Kirsten's spectacular Project Neon montage in the NYT

Sign Safari: White Plains Road

I recently took advantage of the disconcertingly-balmy weather we've had lately to follow up on a few leads that had been sitting on my desk for a while.  Most of these tips go only to dead ends and heartbreak.  But this time I got lucky – a whole clutch of great old neon I hadn't seen before.  Here's what I found.

Saturday morning, bright and early, I set out for Dante's Pastry Shop, in the Wakefield section of the Bronx.  Helvetica and the NYC Subway author Paul Shaw tipped me off on this gem, on White Plains Road at the end of the 2/5 train.  I wasn't sure what kind of confections Dante might have in store for me, but it sounded pretty promising so I brought my appetite along for the ride.   

Dante's Pastry Shop, 4715 White Plains Road (RIP).  Fascia sign, porcelain enamel with red lettering, probably installed around the mid-1960s.  (T. Rinaldi)

Bad news: Dante's has bit the dust.  I arrived to find workmen carting debris out the front door from the bakery's gutted interior.  But Dante's sign was still up, so in this regard it was mission accomplished, apparently not a moment too soon.  

Dante's in detail.  (T. Rinaldi)

Fortunately I hadn't trusted Dante with my caffeine dependency (some things you just don't fool around with).  Fueled by a big cup of coffee acquired previously, I headed down White Plains Road to see what else I might have missed.  Right across from Dante I found some of the best old neon I've seen in a long time, over the storefront of Peerless Cleaners.  One of the taxi hawkers out front suggested I go in and ask the owner to light it up for me.  This I did, but the friendly proprietress inside told me the sign doesn't work anymore.  The tubes are intact and the lettering is, well, without peer, at least in this neighborhood, so hopefully they'll get the old girl fired up sometime soon.  I promise I'll even bring my dry cleaning up here if they do.

Peerless Cleaners at 4706 White Plains Road.  DOB records indicate an installation date of 1957 for this sign, the work of Union Shop No. 16.  (T. Rinaldi)

White Plains Road has a great bustle to it that makes walking down this street under the el like reading a book you can't put down.  I'd gone more than 20 blocks by the time I came to my next old neon sighting: a great, porcelain enameled fascia sign heralding the premises of Anetta Green Liquor, Inc., in Williamsbridge.  The owner, his curiosity understandably piqued, came out to ask why the hell I was taking so many photos of his storefront.  I explained; we had a friendly chat and he happily turned the lights on for me.

Anetta Green Liquor Inc., 3775 White Plains Road.  This fascia sign is the work of the Albee Sign Co.  DOB records suggest an installation date of 1941 but I wonder if it may be more recent than that. (T. Rinaldi)

About 15 blocks further south, in what the map tells me is a place called Ollinville, I came to another great LIQUORS sign, this one at Irmon Wines & Liquors on Burke Ave. 

Irmon Wines & Liquors, 718 Burke Ave.  Stainless-on-porcelain; installation date c. 1956, per DOB.  (T. Rinaldi)

One of Irmon's customers, apparently a regular, interrupted his sidewalk lunch (a 1/5-gallon bottle partially concealed within a brown paper bag) to inquire about my interest in the sign.  He agreed that it was without a doubt the oldest and most interesting sign on the block.  Older, even, than that of the nearby Burger Barn Restaurant, right under the el at the corner of White Plains Road and Burke, whose storefront is crowned with a raceway sign of blackletter characters outlined in exposed neon tubes that sadly, like Irmon's, don't appear to have come alight in a good long while. 

Burger Barn Restaurant, in the shadow of the el at 3092 White Plains Road.  Installation date c. 1972, per DOB.  (T. Rinaldi)

Five new finds in one day was pretty good, but I wanted more.  Sunday found me on the hunt in Queens, where another slew of great new finds lay in store.  Alas, these will have to wait for another post.  Meantime, when on White Plains Road be sure to take a moment and scope out some of the best old neon in the Bronx, right there below the el.