M is for Missing

The big M over the Milford Plaza is gone.  It appears to have come down sometime in the past few weeks.  With the old hotel undergoing a major renovation, I wondered what would become of its nice ensemble of old neon signs, which preside over 8th Avenue just west of Times Square.  In addition to the roof sign, part of which remains, the hotel also has a pair of large vertical signs, one on each side.

The late, great M, recently departed from the roof of the Milford Plaza. (T. Rinaldi)

A little history: as installed, the giant M stood not for "Milford", as one might suppose, but for "Manhattan" – Hotel Manhattan, to be exact.  It first appeared here in 1958, the work of none other than the Artkraft Strauss Sign Corp, which had installed the great Pepsi-Cola spectacular over the Bond Building at Times Square just two years earlier.   

One of the Milford’s two vertical signs, each 8 stories high. (T. Rinaldi)

The Manhattan's big M was the spiritual descendant of an earlier roof sign erected in the same spot when the building first opened as the Hotel Lincoln three decades earlier. Designed by architects Schwartz & Gross and built by Irwin S. Chanin (developer of the great Chanin Building, among many others), the Lincoln opened its doors on February 13, 1928, in commemoration of what would have been Honest Abe's 119th birthday (actually the day before).  Then-Governor Al Smith pressed a button to light the building’s original mast-like roof sign from the state capital in Albany during the opening ceremony.  

 The Lincoln’s original roof sign. (Signs of the Times, May 1932)

The Lincoln's original roof sign scored a brief cameo in the title sequence of the 1933 film adaptation of 42nd Street.  It was engineered by Sol Oberwager, a longtime fixture in the New York sign business who later became one of the city's most active sign-and-awning permit expediters, handling paperwork for a significant percentage of all illuminated signs erected throughout the city from the 1930s through the 1950s (including the Apollo Theater and Hotel New Yorker, among many others).   

The Lincoln’s original roof sign made a cameo in the 1933 film adaptation of 42nd Street.  The “H” at bottom belongs to the Hotel Times Square. (Frame enlargement, 42nd Street)

The original sign made way for the big M in 1958, when the Lincoln re-opened as the Hotel Manhattan.  Though it looked a little dull in recent years, the sign must have been a sight to behold when it debuted, clad in more than a mile of neon tubing that changed color in animated sequence.  A horizontal sign reading HOTEL MANHATTAN stood at its base.  "The Hotel Manhattan . . . has several beautiful signs to mark its spot," reported Signs of the Times magazine: "one on the roof has a 31-foot wide and 12-foot deep 'M' visible for 20 miles, [with] 6,500 feet of neon tubing in colors changing from white and gold to shades of blue." 

The Lincoln became the Manhattan in 1958. 

The roof sign survived the hotel's transformation into the Milford Plaza in 1980 (the new management simply removed the letters MANHATTAN from beneath the big M and left the rest).   At some point, the M was stripped of its neon and lit by floodlights shining up from below.  The old vertical signs on the north and south facades meanwhile were re-lettered to reflect the hotel's new name.  As neon hotel signs in New York grew increasingly scarce, the Milford remained one of the last places in the city where you could book a room with that iconic glow out your window.  

The Milford’s neon signs seen from Sardi’s on 45th Street in 2006.  (T. Rinaldi)

What comes next for the Milford's roof sign remains unclear.  Under new management (Highgate Holdings), the place is undergoing an extensive makeover, with slick new décor – some of it even incorporating a big capital "M" very much like the one that just came down from up top.  Does this hint at a new big M for the roof?  A restoration to the sign’s 1958 splendor, perhaps?  Or a replica of Sol Oberwager's 1928 original?  Word from the Milford's new management is that a revamped sign of one form or another is on its way, but the design is still in the works.  For now, it's wait and see.

REFERENCES:

• "Smith to Light 8^th Av. Sign."  New York Times, February 13, 1928.

• "Along Broadway."  Signs of the Times,  March, 1958.

• Special thanks to Ross Savedge for coming up with this week’s headline.

IN OTHER NEON NEWS:

• Fedora Dorato, former proprietor of Fedora Restaurant on West 4th Street, has passed away (from Marty via JVNY).
• Rocco Restaurant, at 181 Thompson Street, poised to disappear after 89 years, leaving the future of one of New York’s earliest neon signs (installed 1934) in doubt.
• The lovely vertical sign at Alex Liquor Store in Washington Heights has gone to a private collector.
• Cambridge Liquor's classic vertical sign appears to be getting a facelift, tubes removed and sheet metal painted black.

Neon At One-Hundred

This Wednesday, November 9, 2011, will mark exactly one hundred years since Georges Claude filed his "System of Illuminating by Luminescent Tubes" at the U.S. Patent Office.  This event arguably marked the birth of neon illumination in the United States (Claude filed the same patent in his native France in November 1910).  "Arguable" is the operative word here:  despite their immense impact on the built landscape, the origins of neon signs are murky at best. 

Georges Claude's claim as the originator of neon signs in the United States rested on Patent No. 1,125,476, filed November 9, 1911. (freepatentsonline.com; click here to see the whole patent)

 

The U.S. Patent Office had multiple reservations about Claude's application, and did not issue his patent until January 19, 1915, more than three years later.  By his own account, Claude did not exhibit his neon lights in the U.S. until 1913.  Claude's signs appeared in Paris before World War I, but his first American sale did not come until 1923.  His U.S. patents were besieged by law suits all through the 1920s: various inventors claimed to have created neon signs in the U.S. as early as 1909, and Claude's system was predicated on developments by the American inventor D. McFarlan Moore.

"Outshines the Sunshine." (From Claude Neon advertisements in New York Times, 1927-28)

But this is hardly the occasion to dwell on doubts over Claude's status as the "inventor" of neon signs, or other silly details, like his collaboration with the Nazis during the Second World War, and subsequent imprisonment (we'll get into that another day).  On this anniversary, I thought it would be nice to tally up some of Claude's signs that still survive in New York, or that survived until recently.  

In a 1927 advertisement, Claude Neon Lights of New York claimed to have produced 611 of 750 neon installations that then existed in New York.  Claude fabricated some signs at its own plant, which was located in Long Island City, and some in collaboration with other sign shops that operated as Claude-licensed affiliates; non-licensed shops were invariably sued by Claude.   The most prominent Claude licensee in New York was Strauss & Co., predecessor of the famous Artkraft Strauss Sign Corp.  A number of early neon signs by Strauss / Artkraft Strauss survive and can be partly attributed to Claude.  Strauss had a contract to do signs for all Loew's movie theaters in the New York area, and a few Loew's signs from this period survive in the city.  Only one of these – the sign at the Loew's Paradise Theatre in the Bronx, possibly New York’s oldest neon sign – remains functional.

Fascia sign of the Loew's Paradise Theatre in the Bronx, likely the work of Claude Neon / Strauss & Co. Installed in 1929, this is possibly the oldest surviving neon sign in New York today.  (T.Rinaldi)

 

Until relatively recently, one Claude sign (at least I think it was made by Claude) hung over a former Longchamp's restaurant on Madison Avenue and 49th Street.  I couldn't quite make out the lettering on the tiny plaque at the bottom of the sign, but it looked like it said "Claude Neon", and this helpful tidbit from the internet seems to back that up.  The sign disappeared in 2006, taking its little manufacturer's tag with it.

This great relic sign vanished in 2006. (T.Rinaldi)

At least two other Claude signs remain in New York: the long-dark roof sign over Tudor City on East 42nd Street, which Claude erected in 1939 (more on this in another post), and the great neon clock at the former Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower in Brooklyn, installed in 1929.  In Claude Neon's house organ, the Claude Neon News, the company described this latter installation as "the largest four-faced illuminated clock in the world," with hour- and minute-hands 12- and 17-feet long, respectively, and a total diameter of 27 feet.  The Loew's Paradise not withstanding, this is probably the last functioning Claude display in the five boroughs today (when it functions, that is).  

Two surviving works by Claude Neon Lights of New York: the long dark roof sign over Tudor City on East 42nd Street (top) and the great four-faced clock of the former Williamsburgh Savings Bank tower in Brooklyn. (T.Rinaldi)

If Claude may not have truly invented the neon sign, he unquestionably deserves credit for making neon illumination a commercially viable industry, one that made an indelible mark on the built landscape of the 20th century.  Yet his dominance of the neon business was short-lived: in the 1930s, Claude's critical patent expired.  In New York, smaller sign shops soon wrested the lion's share of the neon trade from Claude. One such shop, the Serota Sign Corp., purchased Claude's New York operation in the midst of the Second World War.  Claude himself died in 1960, aged 89, his record as an inventor still overshadowed by his collaboration with the Nazis during the War.  But traces of his work survive.  In addition to the signs pictured here, there are a handful of old Claude Neon franchises around the world that actually still retain the Claude name in 2011.  And Claude Neon's parent company, the French industrial gas supplier Air Liquide, is still alive and well, Fortune 500-listed nearly 110 years after Georges Claude co-founded it in 1902.

IN OTHER NEON NEWS:

• Word (by way of Jeremiah's Vanishing New York) on salvation for the Coney Island Bialy Bakery, and for its great neon sign, made by the Salzman Sign Co. c. 1959. 

REFERENCES:

• "Claude Neon Lights, Inc" (Advertisement). New York Times, Oct. 18, 1927.
• The Claude Neon News, Aug. 1929., p. 2.
• "Fluorescent Coloring." Signs of the Times, June 1939.
• Morris, Mel. The Neon Patent Situation. Houston: Mel Morris Neon Laboratories, 1930.

Grauer Sign Co.

Shame on me for taking so long to actually patronize the great D'Aiuto bakery on 8th Avenue!  I could come up with a litany of excuses, but they're all pretty lame.  Anyhow, I finally made it there over the weekend for a coffee and a sfogliatella and I must say, it's my own loss for not having stopped by sooner.  

D'Aiuto's Pastry Corp. at 405 8th Ave. (T. Rinaldi)

It's not like I didn't know about the place.  I first shot D'Aiuto's great neon sign back in October 2006.  The sign is unique, and very likable.  I especially like it because it's one of very few signs I was able to learn anything about from the insane number of hours I spent going through old Building Department filings looking for records on old signs and their makers.  

Advertisement for the Grauer Sign Co. from around the time the D'Aiuto sign went up.  (1960 Manhattan Telephone Directory)

Turns out D'Aiuto's sign is the work of the Grauer Sign Co. of the Bronx.  Based on the number of their old signs still kicking around, Grauer must have been one of the busiest neon shops in the city for much of the 20th century. 

Grauer manufacturer's tag on the fascia sign of Post Road Wines & Liquors in the Bronx. (T. Rinaldi)

Grauer advertised itself as "Fabricators and Manufacturers since 1928."  Telephone directories list them at various addresses in the Bronx through the 1960s, then in Flushing, Queens in the 1970s.  They disappear from the yellow pages by the mid-1990s.  Some of their signs bear "Union Made" tags with the code number 3.

Two Grauer signs installed c. 1957: Post Road Wines and Liquors at 3429 Boston Post Road, and the Maryland Furniture Co. on East Tremont Ave., both in the Bronx.  (T. Rinaldi)

Grauer seems to have been most active in the Bronx, but their signs can also be found in Manhattan and Queens (and probably Brooklyn, too).  Some of the signs are fairly ordinary, but others are more elaborate, displaying a variety of midcentury letterforms and sign faces in angular, abstract shapes highly characteristic of popular advertising graphics of the 1950s and 60s.

Grauer installed this sign for the Palomba Academy of Music at 974 East Gun Hill Road in 1956. (T. Rinaldi)

The variety of Grauer neon that survives is a good case study in the range of businesses that advertised with neon.  Detractors of neon signs tend to associate the medium with unseemly enterprises, but in fact, neon signs served all kinds of businesses:  surviving Grauer signs advertise everything from fuel oil to funeral homes.  

Surviving signs by Grauer advertise everything from fuel oil to funeral homes.  Top: Stratford Fuel on East Tremont Ave. in the Bronx, installed c. 1952; Bottom: sign for the Bernard F. Dowd Funeral Home on Hillside Ave. in Jamaica, Queens, adapted by Grauer c. 1982 from an earlier Grauer-made sign advertising the Quinn Funeral Home, which operated here previously.  (T. Rinaldi)

The sign Grauer made for D'Aiuto is one of my favorites.  Installed in 1960, it is the centerpiece of a great period storefront façade that probably dates to the same year.  The sign itself is trapezoidal in shape, with fluorescent pink neon tubes outlining unique letterforms that flare out at the top, like the sign.  A back-lit acrylic panel runs across the lower portion of the sign, making it something of a hybrid.  James and Karla Murray's great book Storefront tells us that the business has been run by the same family since it opened in 1924. Previously it had operated out of a storefront a few blocks down the street, at 311 8th Avenue.  That block was cleared in the late 1950s for the construction of the Penn South houses.

Top: D'Aiuto's storefront today. (T. Rinaldi); Bottom: An old photo taped to the wall inside the store shows D'Aiuto's original home at 311 8th Avenue. (D'Aiuto)

Like so many of New York's old neon signs, this one speaks for family-run institutions deeply rooted in the identity of the city and its neighborhoods.  The Grauer Sign Co. is gone, but at D'Aiuto and a handful of other old businesses around the city, its work is with us still.

Please drop me a line if you know anything more about the Grauer Sign Co.

IN OTHER NEON NEWS:

• Word that the lights are back on over at the Subway Inn, after a brief scare.

STAY TUNED NEXT WEEK for a post commemorating the centennial of Georges Claude's momentous patent filing for a "System of Illuminating by Luminescent Tubes" ...

Jack-o'-Neon

Nothing says "trick-or-treat" like this neon pumpkin, who has brightened my diurnal walk to work from his perch in the display window of the Goodwill Store on West 25th Street near Sixth Ave.  He is emphatically NOT for sale ("boss says I'd get fired if I sold it") but appears to be the work of the Neonetics of Hampstead, Maryland, and can be found on eBay for about $40.

The 25th Street Goodwill meanwhile has some noteworthy neon of its own.  The facade is crowned by a fascia sign with fluorescent blue neon tubes shielded behind a sheet of stainless diamond-plate steel, from which Goodwill's comic-sans-like logotype glows in silhouette when the sign comes alight.  Unfortunately it is mounted rather high up and is somewhat obscured by a big street tree, making it a little difficult to see.  Langston Hughes once said that he liked neon signs "as much, if not better than trees."  While I might agree in some contexts, on West 25th Street I'm content to have both.

Happy Halloween, Goodwill Store!  I'll see you for some last minute costume shopping this Saturday...

IN OTHER NEON NEWS  

I have added a handful of new signs to the main New York Neon site: 

• The Sheraton New York, formerly the Americana (sign gone now)    

• The Essex House, on Central Park South  

• The recently-landmarked Shore Theatre in Coney Island   

• The American Airlines terminal at LaGuardia, and 

• Added a better photo of Queens Wines & Liquors     

And, from Brooklyn, word of new life for Hinsch's Confectionery. 

Big MONY

The MONY weather beacon has been LED-ed.  I noticed it the other night, while running across Broadway in the rain, late for a dinner date.  The familiar old incandescent bulbs that told the time and temperature and zipped up the mast above are gone, together with the red neon glow in the star-shaped finial, all replaced with bright amber LEDs.  The change seems to have taken place over the summer.

MONY versus MONY, before and after. (T. Rinaldi)

Truth be told, the old weather beacon had begun to look a little sad of late.  Its codified weather signals hadn't worked in years, and the only thing you could count on seeing up there was a patchwork of burned out bulbs.  It's looking healthier now, if a bit sterile.

Before LED-ification, 4,200 lamps studded the Weather Star's 150-foot spire.  Keeping them lit proved a challenge.  (T. Rinaldi)

More properly known as the Mutual Life "Skymark" or "Weather Star", the installation first appeared in 1950, perched atop the new headquarters building of the Mutual Life Insurance Company of New York at Broadway and West 55th Street.  Conceived by famed Times Square sign man Douglas Leigh (1907-1999) and fabricated by the Artkraft Strauss Sign Corp., the Weather Star was produced by the same team responsible for virtually all of Times Square’s midcentury neon spectaculars, including the puffing Camel Cigarettes sign.  It was originally accompanied by a large neon sign reading MUTUAL LIFE in gold neon mounted to the parapet wall below the beacon.  The sign was later re-lettered "Mutual Of New York", then simply "MONY".  A re-hashed MONY sign appeared in 1998, which finally made way for the existing LED-powered "1740", installed in 2008 after the insurance company disappeared into an alphabet soup of mergers and acquisitions (MONY is now part of AXA S.A.).  

The Weather Star c. 1968, in a frame enlargement from "Midnight Cowboy."

The Weather Star meanwhile remained largely unchanged through the years (apart from some minor improvements made in 1965), outliving all of its Times Square cousins.  As originally programmed, the 4,200 bulbs on its 150-foot mast zipped up to indicate rising temperatures, down if the forecast called for cooler weather, and remained static if no change was predicted.  The star changed from green to orange to white to indicate fair or cloudy skies, rain or snow. 

MONY used the weatherbeacon as a corporate logotype in its advertising during the 1950s and 60s. (Life Magazine, June 24, 1957)

Similar weather beacons appeared in other cities (MONY has a cousin at the Mutual Life building in Syracuse; Wikipedia counts more than 70 around the world).  But the Weather Star was New York's own. "From my office, I could look across town to the weather signal on the Mutual of New York Building," wrote Joan Didion in Goodbye to All That: "that pleased me obscurely."  Tommy James cited the display as the inspiration for the 1968 hit "Mony Mony": "It's almost as if God Himself had said, 'Here's the title.' I've always thought that if I had looked the other way, it might have been called 'Hotel Taft.'" The beacon had a bit part in John Schlesinger’s 1969 film Midnight Cowboy, backing up a questionable scrabble move by the hapless Joe Buck.  When MONY briefly dimmed the beacon in 1979 in an attempt to save an estimated $50,000 annually on its upkeep, a small outcry convinced the company to turn the lights back on. 

My gut reaction to the Weather Star's LED-ification came as a pang of nostalgic lament for the old incandescent bulbs.  It looks just a little too uniform, especially with the star in the same orangey LED hue as the rest of it.  But consider the alternative: the building is not Landmarked, and its owner – Vornado Realty Trust – could just as easily have taken the thing down altogether.  Much as I am invariably saddened by the loss of superannuated technology, it's nice to see new life breathed into the old girl.  Now if only they could bring back the beacon's animated, color-coded forecasting scheme so those of us without smartphones might once again get our weather on the fly . . .  

"Mony Mony" hit Number One on the UK Singles Chart in 1968.  (YouTube)

MONY Weather Star Fact Sheet

from Signs of the Times magazine, January 1951:

• Electrical Consumption: 170 kw

• Lamps: 4,200

• Neon Tubing: 3,500 feet

• Transformers: 85

• Wiring: 17,000 feet

• Height of Clock Numerals: 7 feet, 6 inches

• Combined Weight Mast & Base: 32.5 tons

• Diameter of Star Finial: 10 feet (from point to point)
• Height to top of Star Finial: 526 feet

• Estimated Range of Visibility: 5 miles

For more, see:

• Signs of the Times magazine, September 1950 (cover), January 1951 (pp. 41-42), and November 1965 (p. 100).
• Georgia Brittan, "MONY Star Extinguished." New York Magazine, March 12, 1979

• David Dunlap, “No More MONY in the Midtown Skyline.”  New York Times, February 8, 2008

 

American Neon

Sixteen stories over Broadway, the remnants of an old painted sign reading AMERICAN NEON are still faintly visible.  They cling to the side of a 21-story office tower at 989 Sixth Avenue, just above Herald Square, known as the Lefcourt Empire Building.  Handsome but rather non-descript, the Lefcourt Empire melds anonymously into the midtown skyline today.  But for a few years in the late 1920s, a giant neon beacon blazed out from its roof, making this one of the most prominent nocturnal landmarks in the city.

16 stories over Sixth Avenue, faint lettering still reads AMERICAN NEON. (T. Rinaldi)

 

The big neon beacon made its appearance here as an advertising ploy for the American Neon Light & Sign Corp., which organized in 1927. Since the first practical neon signs appeared in the United States in 1923, one company – Claude Neon – had sought to control the neon business by way of patent litigation.  By the late 1920s, however, Claude began to lose its grip on the industry.  American Neon was one of Claude’s first serious challengers.  
 

 American Neon lit the universe... but not for long.  (Signs of the Times, Sept. 1927)

The company’s backers included A.E. Lefcourt, a prominent real estate developer.  "All but forgotten today," says Wikipedia,  "in his lifetime Lefcourt was known as one of the city's most prolific developers of Art Deco buildings." Keying into the growing fascination with developments in aviation, Lefcourt offered American Neon the roof of the Lefcourt Empire for the construction of a neon "airport signal" intended guide aircraft towards New York from as far as 100 miles away.  To light the beacon, the company brought in Clarence Chamberlin – pilot of the second successful Transatlantic flight (completed in June 1927, just two weeks after Lindbergh) – who flipped the ceremonial switch. "Special provisions have been made for the flashing of any and all code signals on any specific occasion," reported Signs of the Times magazine in August 1928.

 
Lighting the neon beacon.  (Signs of the Times, Aug. 1928)

American Neon advertisements featuring the beacon.  (Signs of the Times, Nov. 1927 left; July 1928 right)

By appearances, American Neon could hardly have picked a better time to enter the neon business. The years 1927 and 1928 saw neon signs sweep the country in the way LED signs seem to be doing today.  But somehow, things went awry.  Sure enough, the company became embroiled in costly patent litigation – the so-called “neon war” of the late 1920s.  Then came Black Tuesday.  Claude’s crucial patents expired in 1932, but it was too late for American Neon, which declared bankruptcy in 1930.   

989 Sixth Avenue by daylight, Feb 5, 1929, showing the beacon at upper right.  (P.L. Sperr / NYPL)

In the years that followed, American Neon and everything it touched faded into obscurity.  Lefcourt’s real estate empire fell apart during the depression:  he died of a heart attack in 1932, just 55 years of age, leaving behind a small army of frustrated creditors.  While Lindbergh remained a household name for decades, Clarence Chamberlin wound up selling real estate in Connecticut, where he died in 1976.  And once the beacon light went dark, the Lefcourt Empire Building receded into the cityscape, as taller towers rose around it.  Satellite photos reveal no trace of the beacon on its roof today.  But the faded letters remain, a haunting reminder of headier days.  

The Lefcourt Empire today.  (T. Rinaldi)

(More background on American Neon can be found at the fantastic web site 14to42.net.)

Ode to a Luncheonette

Hinsch’s seemed too good to be true.  Turns out it was.  Various internet sources report that the venerable confectionary and luncheonette, on 5th Avenue by 86th Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, has suddenly shut its doors, and two of New York’s finest old signs have gone dark some 63 years after they went up.

Hinsch's occupied this storefront at 8515 5th Avenue in Brooklyn for 63 years. (T. Rinaldi)

This past summer, I gave Hinsch’s a call to ask about the old neon signs that hang over their storefront.  I’ve made a hundred or so calls like this trying to gather as much information as I can about these old signs before the details of their provenance vanish into the ether.  Sometimes the calls go nowhere.  Sometimes a grumpy voice on the other end hangs up on me.  But there are other times when friendly store owners are only too happy to tell me about their family businesses.  I can very often sense great pride in the way they speak.  

Elevation sketch of Hinsch's vertical sign, installed c. 1948.  Rounded ends, porcelain enameled steel in two tones and bird feather details mark this as a fine work of its period. (T. Rinaldi)

The woman who answered at Hinsch’s passed the phone to John Logue, Jr., the owner.   Mr. Logue spoke with a polite, friendly cadence, every bit as pleasant as the business he ran - it was a pleasure to talk with him.  A business association tallied up 685 confectioners in New York 45 years ago, he told me.  This summer he knew of only four that survive.* 

Hinsch’s had been in business at the same location since 1948, but the shop had roots that went back further, having operated on 18th Avenue in Bay Ridge previously.  In 1948, old Mr. Hinsch moved the business to its current address, where a confectioner’s called Reichert’s had already been in operation for at least a decade.  The city’s tax photo from c. 1940 shows Reichert’s storefront with neon signs very similar to the ones Mr. Hinsch installed in 1948 (this was fairly common – many of New York’s old neon signs replaced predecessors of similar configurations).  

Before 1948, 8515 5th Avenue was home to Reichert's Confectionery, with neon signs very similar to those installed by Hinsch. (Municipal Archives)

Mr. Logue’s father began working for Hinsch before the shop moved from its old location on 18th Avenue.  He bought the business outright in 1961 and later passed it to his son, the affable Mr. Logue who kindly lent me a few minutes of his time this summer.

We may never know who Hinsch hired to make his signs back in 1948 – Mr. Logue quite understandably had no idea; the information may or may not lie buried in Buildings Department paperwork somewhere.  The little “Union Made” tag appears to be too faded to yield the numeric code that might identify the maker.  Whoever it was did a fine job.  The signs looked great.  And they lasted 63 years, right up to the day Hinsch’s closed.  I echo Project Neon's plea for a neon angel to give these signs a good retirement.   Meantime, I’ll remember a frigid night in January a few years back, after hours of traversing the city seeking out ancestral neon, when refuge came accompanied by a cheeseburger and a coke, slid my way across the countertop where untold thousands of burgers and cokes had been served up over the  decades. 

Oh well, I guess we still have Burger King.

*The other three confectioneries Mr. Logue mentioned are the Anopoli Ice Cream Parlor on 3rd Avenue at 69th Street in Bay Ridge, and two outside the city limits - Itgen’s Ice Cream Parlor in Valley Stream, and Krisch’s, in Massapequa, the latter with a lovely neon sign of its own.  There is also Eddie’s, in Forest Hills, also with neon.

UPDATE: As of December 2011, Hinsch's is up and running again under new management.