Postcards from a Lost City

A gallery of lost New York storefronts is preserved in old promotional postcards, given out by restaurants and other businesses in decades past.  Even as an avid collector of stuff like this, it never occurred to me that such an accidental archive might be out there.  Until one day, I chanced upon an old postcard featuring the neon marquee of Paddy's Clam House, formerly housed in the old Penn Terminal Hotel on 34th Street.  It dawned on me there might be more where that came from.

Paddy's Clam House / 215 W34th Street, Manhattan

Now after a few years of hunter-gathering, I have compiled a decent collection of these remnants from New York's lost neon past.  They fill an album that sits on my bookshelf as a sort of companion volume to my book New York Neon, and to James and Karla Murray's book Storefronts.  Intended to traverse intervals of space, today these cards more potently span distances of time.  Every single one of the shops and restaurants in this album is gone now, leaving behind just these postcards from a vanished city.

Horn & Hardart Automat / 57th Street and 6th Avenue, Manhattan

 

Solowey's Restaurant & Bar - "Never Closed" / 431-433 7th Avenue, Manhattan

Solowey's again.  It's a McDonald's now.

Topps Cafe & Bar / 42nd Street, "Largest and Friendliest Bar in Times Square" / 145 W42nd St., Manhattan

 

Toffenetti Restaurant - "1,000 seats for breakfast, lunch, dinner and after theatre" / 43rd and B'way, Manhattan

Drake's Restaurant Bar, "Opposite Gimbel's" / 116 W32nd Street, Manhattan

The Brass Rail, "An Eating Place of International Fame" / 7th Avenue at 49th Street, Manhattan

 

Lindy's Restaurant, "Favorite Eating and Drinking Spot of the Theatrical World" / Broadway at 51st St., Manhattan

Lou G. Siegel / 209 W38th Street, Manhattan (see last week's story on Lou G's)

The Center Theatre / 1236 Sixth Ave., Manhattan

Sal's Italian American Restaurant,  "An Eating Place of Distinction" / 751 Sterling Place, Brooklyn 

 

Chez Ami Furniture / 8402 18th Ave., Brooklyn 

Murray's Restaurant, "Radio Artists' Rendezvous" / Sixth Ave opposite Radio City, Manhattan

 

Ho-Ho Restaurant - "The Most Famous Chinese Restaurant in Times Square" / 789 7th Ave., Manhattan

Roth's Grill & Restaurant / 1599-1601 Broadway, Manhattan

 

Jimmy's Chop House & Clam Bar / 1973-75 Flatbush Ave., Brooklyn 

 

Harvey's Sea Food House / 409-411 3rd Avenue (at 34th Street), Manhattan

 

Fanny Farmer Candies / 50th Street at "Avenue of the Americas," Manhattan

Kelly's Stable, "At the Gateway to Swing Lane" / 137 W52nd Street, Manhattan

 

Hector's Cafeteria - "New York's Most Fabulous Self-Service Restaurants" / Times Square vicinity, Manhattan.

 

Luchow's Restaurant / 110-112 E14th St., Manhattan

Canton Village / 163 W49th Street, Manhattan

Lignan Restaurant / 2512 Broadway at 94th St., Manhattan

Roth's Grill - "The Most Famous Eating Place in Times Square" / 725 7th Avenue, Manhattan

Jack Delaney's, "Now Air-Conditioned" / 72 Grove Street, Manhattan

"The World Famous" Reuben's Restaurant, 6 E58th Street / Manhattan

Raymond's Fashion Shoppe - "Smart Dresses, Coats, Suits" / 14 Graham Ave., Williamsburg, Brooklyn

 

Queen of the Sea Restaurant "and the Excelsior Cocktail Lounge" / 45-12 Queens Boulevard, Sunnyside, Queens

 

Harvey's Chelsea Restaurant / 108 W18th St., Manhattan

NEON NEIGHBORHOOD WALKING TOUR: 

• My next Neon Walking Tour will take place on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2015.  New West Village itinerary!  Tickets available at the Municipal Art Society via this link (scroll down to "Neon Neighborhood").

IN OTHER NEON NEWS: 

• From downtown LA, a bit of a post-facto news item here on the re-lighting of the Globe Theatre marquee on South Broadway.  A really nice neon restoration story.

• Meanwhile, back in New York, the anticipation drags on regarding the fate of Smith's Bar on 8th Avenue in Midtown.

Seagulls on 38th Street

The side streets off Eighth Avenue in the West 30s still retain a bit of that gritty flavor of old Gotham, with various one-off points of interest of the sort that seem to have been wiped clear from the rest of Manhattan.  One of the more intriguing such anomalies here is the grandiose neon-lit marquee of Ben's Kosher Delicatessen, at 209 West 38th Street.  Crowned by a square-faced analog clock, this signage strikes one as something out of another era (it could never be installed under current zoning laws).  Yet Ben's has only been here since the mid-1990s.  What gives?


Ben's of West 38th Street.  (T. Rinaldi)

Turns out Ben's clock actually belongs to the fourth generation of signage to hang over this storefront in more or less the same configuration since the mid-1920s.  And happily, the previous incarnations are all documented in photographs, making Ben's a fascinating evolutionary case study in Manhattan storefront neon.   

An evolutionary study of storefront signage at 209 W38th Street.

Many native New Yorkers will remember Ben's predecessor, Lou G. Siegel's Hebrew National Restaurant and Delicatessen, which operated from 1917 until Ben's took over in 1996.  By the time it closed, "Lou G's" was widely considered one of New York's major culinary landmarks, something in league with Katz's down on Houston Street today.  The New York Times issued a sentimental send-off upon the restaurant's closure after 79 years: "It's like they're knocking down Yankee Stadium," remarked one longtime customer back then.  (As it happened, Lou G. Siegel continued in business as a kosher caterer based in Brooklyn - they're still around today - while Ben's revived the West 38th Street restaurant under a new name.  Yankee Stadium was bulldozed after the 2008 season.) 


"Meet Me At Lou G. Siegel's": spiritual ancestor of Ben's clock appeared on West 38th Street around 1925.  Siegel's opal glass sign was made by Nedelman & Schoenfeld of New York.  (Signs of the Times Magazine, May 1926)

Lou G. Siegel installed the spiritual ancestor of the present clock around 1925, as part of an incandescent-lit "opal glass" display that hung about where Ben's sign hangs today.  Opal glass signs were an enormously popular typology of electric signage before neon displaced them beginning in the late 1920s.  Only one genuine opal glass storefront sign survives in Manhattan today, at Barbetta Restaurant on West 46th Street.

Last of its kind:  Barbetta's opal glass sign on W46th dates to 1931. (T.Rinaldi)

Lou Siegel's opal glass signage is described in a write-up published in Signs of the Times Magazine in 1926.  The sign featured a stylized seagull - Siegel's clever logo - above the clock.  "The sign is . . . erected on the Art Craft building in the very heart of New York's newest garment manufacturing center, where literally multitudes of people congregate daily to do business," wrote ST.  "A clock of the very finest workmanship, electrically wound and timed, was also included to make this a most complete day and night sign.  Thousands of people get accustomed to seeing the time of day in a certain place, and while sub-consciously seeking this information, the advertising message in this sign is put across to them in a most effective and direct way."

Dynamic as it surely was, Siegel's opal glass sign probably looked dated after just a few years, as neon spread across the city in the late 20s and early 30s.  Records at the NYC Department of Buildings show new signs going up here in 1936, and Lou Siegel's new and improved neon marquee is illustrated in promotional postcards given out by the restaurant in the 1940s. 

 
Lou G. Siegel's neon extravaganza, installed c. 1936.

Siegel's spectacular neon marquee appears to have lasted about 30 years, by which time it too would have looked somewhat dated.  Buildings Department records show new signage installed in 1962. In keeping with the popular trend away from exposed tube neon, the new sign featured plexiglass faces backlit by off-the-shelf fluorescent tubes.  The new sign lacked the exuberance of its predecessor, but the clock and stylized seagulls remained, at least thematically. 

 

Lou G. Siegel's 1960s clock and seagulls remain in place today.  (Hungry Gerald, above; T. Rinaldi, below)

Ben's current sign is actually only a slight alteration of Siegel's 1960s signage, even retaining the very same seagull logo below the clock.  One wonders how many passersby notice this subtle tribute to the bygone kosher king of 38th Street, a man the Times remembered as "a Damon Ruynon character," a "flashy man about town who favored three-piece suits and custom-made shirts, lived at the ritzy Eldorado apartment house on Central Park West and hung around with entertainers like Eddie Cantor and George Jessel" - "he would love to pin a carnation on the ladies whenever they came in." 

SEE ALSO: 

• The NYT's well-written tribute to Lou G. Siegel from 1996.
• Lou G. Siegel Kosher Catering of Brooklyn.
• Ben's of West 38th Street.
• Lou G. Siegel memorialized at Ephemeral New York.
• Lou G.'s remembered in an interesting write-up on kosher nostalgia at Hungry Gerald.

NEON NEIGHBORHOOD WALKING TOUR: 

• My next Neon Walking Tour will take place on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2015.  New West Village itinerary!  Tickets available at the Municipal Art Society via this link (scroll down to "Neon Neighborhood").

IN OTHER NEON NEWS: 
• San Francisco Neon, a new book by Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan, written-up in the SF Chronicle.
• Has anyone visited Berlin's Museum der Buchstaben (Museum of Letters), where "Hundreds of signs have already been rescued from decay and the scarp heap"?
• In Brooklyn, the Kentile "K" came out of hiding (briefly) for a holiday photo-op over the holidays.

• An uncertain future for Albany's massive rooftop Nipper dog.

• For the smartphone set, there is now a "Roadside Americana" app.

• Via Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, there is new neon in place at the former Back Fence bar spot on Bleecker Street.

• And finally, many thanks to CasaCara for this nice review of my December neon tour.

Lights Out 2014: Signs We Lost This Year

2014 started as a quiet year in the world of vanishing neon.  But things picked up over the summer, leaving us at year's end with a miserable tale of loss and woe.  In keeping with previous years, 2014 yielded more than 15 notable neon casualties, up from the dozen or so we've lost each of the last few years (see "Lights Out 2011 / 2012 / 2013").  This year's losses seemed especially painful, including some of the city's best landmark neon.  A few of the signs we lost this year have been earmarked for preservation in one form or another. The Famous Oyster Bar signs even resurfaced (partially) within the year.  The rest, however, are bitter pills to swallow. 

Famous Oyster Bar / 842 7th Ave., Manhattan

Manhattan's self-proclaimed "Famous Oyster Bar" closed in February after more than five decades in midtown.  Happily, its pair of fascia signs soon reappeared downtown at the Grey Lady.  Previously the signs faced southeast from the corner of 54th and Seventh; now they face northwest at Delancey and Allen.  The "SEA FOOD" swing sign however remains at large.


Kentile Floors / 58 Second Ave., Brooklyn

Kentile's disappearance in mid-summer spurred probably the most vocal reaction to any disappearance of any neon sign ever in New York.  A group called "Save Kentile" formed to try to preserve the landmark roof sign, a landmark Gowanus for more than 60 years.  Councilman Brad Lander brokered a deal to have the giant letters preserved for future re-installation; they were last seen in the custody of the Gowanus Alliance, a local business improvement nonprofit that tucked them away in storage.  While details on the sign's rebirth remain elusive, the Gowanus Alliance brought out the giant "K" for a holiday photo-op just before Christmas 2014.

Hude's Broadway Delicatessen / 103rd and Broadway, Manhattan

The re-appearance of long hidden signage for Hude's Broadway Delicatessen on the Upper West Side stirred some serious excitement over the summer, with write-ups in all the local papers.  Alas, the sign disappeared quietly a few weeks later, apparently salvaged, but whereabouts unknown.


Domino Sugar / 292-314 Kent Ave., Brooklyn

"Falling like Domino," one might say:  after a prolonged dormancy, the long-projected demolition of the former Domino Sugar plant in Williamsburg finally kicked into high gear this autumn.  On orders from the city's Landmarks Commission, the developers have spared just the core of this historic industrial complex; the plant's huge neon sign came down with a neighboring addition in November.  The sign is slated for re-installation, a-la Long Island City's Pepsi Sign or Jersey City's Colgate Clock.


Adult DVD Depot / 725 Eighth Ave., Manhattan

Not an old sign but a favorite nonetheless, with unabashed showmanship and animated splendor that evoked signs of decades past, DVD Depot was a real stalwart of urban grit just west of Times Square.  Sadly, we noted its loss this summer.  Say what you want about taste, the Eighth Avenue nights are darker for its absence.


Dime Saving Bank / 9 DeKalb Ave., Brooklyn

This grandiose roof sign for Dime Savings Bank lorded over Flatbush Avenue in downtown Brooklyn for decades.  It's gone now, but a new Chase sign has taken its place amid a forest of beanstalk towers rising around it.

Lorraine's Bar & Grille / 1410 Unionport Road, Bronx (photo via Kirsten Hively / ProjectNeon!)

A neighborhood classic, Lorraine's BAR sign has vanished from Unionport Road (actually, a bartender reports that the sign was in fact a casualty of Hurricane Sandy).  Happily, the bar beneath it survives. 

Central Parking / 252 W40th Street,  Manhattan

Darkened but not gone (yet):  Central Parking's giant animated arrow was a holdout, brightening the gritty sidestreets by the brooding Port Authority Bus Terminal.   The early 20th century garage shuttered this year, with plans afoot to level it and build a new tower in its place.

 

Harold's for Prescriptions / 2272 McDonald Ave., Brooklyn

Usually, the disappearance of an old sign means the disappearance of a stalwart neighborhood institution. But sometimes, the story is just that an old business decided it was time for an ill-advised makeover.  This, sadly, is what happened over the summer at Harold's for Prescriptions, in Gravesend, Brooklyn.  The old neighborhood drugstore is still there, but one of Brooklyn's finest old storefront signs is obliterated, entombed beneath generic new signage installed over it.

Home of Cheers Liquors / 261 W18th Street, Manhattan

Home of Cheers Wine and Liquors lost its lease earlier this year; happily they found a new storefront further up Eighth Avenue in Chelsea.  Unhappily, however, its pair of old signs didn't come with them.  The "WINES LIQUORS" raceway sign has since vanished with the opening of a fancy new gelatto place in Cheers' former storefront over the summer, but the vertical sign remains in place, for now.

Grande Memorials / 382 Grand Ave., Brooklyn

Jeremiah's Vanishing New York reported earlier this month on the disappearance of Grande Memorials, on Grand Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  The store hasn't so much disappeared as re-located (to 7803 17th Avenue) – whether their great neon window signs went with them we do not as yet know.

Hotel New Yorker / 481 Eighth Ave., Manhattan

The New Yorker is known for its enormous roof sign, but it also sported a great pair of old neon blade signs down at the street level - until this month.  DOB records tell us that these signs had been there since the time of the 1939 World's Fair, and the signs show up in the city's c. 1940 tax photos.  They hadn't lit up in years, but were still some of my favorite neon relics in town.  They're gone now, displaced by LED replacements. 

DeRobertis Pasticceria / 176 First Ave., Manhattan

DeRobertis vanished on December 5th, 2014, wrapping up an incredible 110-year run on First Avenue.  The shop's neon window signs quickly disappeared, but the storefront sign seems to have been left behind, though its future seems as dim as the neon tubes within.

Pearl Paint / 308 Canal Street, Manhattan

Pearl Paint closed this summer amid rumors of grievous malfeasance on the part of its management and a plot to turn the veteran Canal Street art supply emporium into (surprise) luxury condos.  The orphaned sign remains hanging in ghostly limbo while the building awaits what comes next.

Subway Inn / 143 E60th Street, Manhattan

The Subway Inn fought and lost a David-v-Goliath battle against its landlords in the waning months of 2014, closing out a 70-year stint over the subterranean junction of the IRT and BMT subways at 60th and Lex.  Thanks to an outpouring of support from its admirers, the bar managed to secure new digs a few blocks further east, and has pledged that its neon will shine again.  

Smith's Bar & Restaurant / 701 8th Ave., Manhattan 

Trying to wrap this up on a positive note, we end on Smith's, which disappeared late this year.  When the bar itself closed suddenly just before Halloween, the sign came down piecemeal - only to re-appear soon thereafter.  Word on Eighth Avenue is that the Smith's will re-open at the same address under new management in the new year. 

SEE ALSO: 
• From Alexandra Villareal and the New York Observer, "10 New York Institutions We Loved and Lost in 2014."  

IN OTHER NEON NEWS: 

• From the west coast, Debra Jane is dispatching from a Bay Area holiday neon road trip.  

Bad Neon News for Long Island City's Pepsi Sign

Greetings from New York, where no neon news is good news of late.  Topping the list of bad tidings is word that New York's Landmarks Commission is poised to "de-calendar" Long Island City's famous Pepsi Cola spectacular, together with nearly 100 other historic sites across the five boroughs.  

Pepsi, a New York landmark in all ways but one.  (T. Rinaldi)

In Landmarks Commission terms, "calendaring" means that a site has been nominated for legal protection, but that the Commission has taken no action on the nomination (often to avoid antagonizing influential property owners opposed to designation).  Though not formally designated, "calendared" sites are tentatively protected from demolition.  In many cases, the historic sites in question stay in limbo for decades: the Pepsi sign has been calendared since 1988.  

Pepsi of Long Island City.  (T. Rinaldi)

By way of background, the Pepsi sign has beamed out across the East River since 1937, when the Artkraft Strauss Sign Corp. erected it atop a Pepsi bottling plant in Long Island City.  Huge waterfront spectaculars were once a characteristic feature of New York Harbor,  positioned to catch the attention of anyone on or across the water.  Zoning ordinances outlawed such signs in the 1960s, and almost none remain today.  Though not officially Landmarked, the Pepsi sign charmed its way into posterity when the bottling plant beneath it was demolished in 2005, and has since been incorporated into LIC's new landscape of parkland and luxury high-rises.  To date, not one historic sign in New York has been Landmarked in its own right.

Vera Lutter / Whitney

Sources indicate that the Commission is set to decide the matter in a closed hearing on December 9, 2014, with no room for public testimony.  In the meantime, the Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation has set up an online portal through which to voice your concerns to City Hall; you can also write the Landmarks Commission directly via this link.  

(UPDATE: LPC dropped its de-calendaring proposal in early December.)

DeRobertis will close on December 5, 2014, after 109 years. (T. Rinaldi)

Meanwhile, from the East Village (or the Lower East Side, if you prefer) comes sad news that DeRobertis Pasticceria on First Ave will close its doors on Friday, December 5, 2014, after a jawdropping 110 years in business.  No evil landlord to pin on our dart boards this time: the DeRobertis family has sold the building (for $12 million) and decided to retire from the cannoli business after four generations.  Read the full story in this touching write-up by Frank Mastropolo at Bedford+Bowery.  Then hurry up and treat yourself to a cannoli after sounding off to DeBlasio on the LPC's de-calendaring nonsense.

Mishkin's, in happier days.  (T. Rinaldi)

Still more grim news from uptown, where ScoutingNY reports that Mishkin's Pharmacy (145th St and Amsterdam Ave) has inexplicably executed a total self-gut, completely erasing all traces of what had hitherto been one of New York's most remarkable old drugstore interiors.  Mishkin's exceptionally great neon vertical sign is still there, but "most depressing of all," writes Scout, "the neon hasn't been lit up in some time."  Given the carnage perpetrated below, this does not bode well for some of New York's finest old storefront neon.  Photos and well written commentary at ScoutingNY - fair warning, it ain't pretty.

Reflecting on Miskin's. (T. Rinaldi)

All of this comes as word has spread on the closing of Cafe Edison, one of the very last traces of pre-Bubba Gump Times Square.  Cafe Edison doesn't have much in the way of neon (just a Budweiser sign over the griddle inside) but it has survived as a last link to the neon-crowned automats and cafeterias that fed the hoards of Times Square in the days before Disney's 42nd Street makeover.  Check Jeremiah's Vanishing New York for updates on Cafe Edison's struggle to stay put.

Andreas Feininger / Life Magazine

Finally, one bit of bright news: the trailer is now out for Gasper and Son, a short documentary featuring two of New York's great neon stalwarts, Gasper and Robbie Ingui of Artistic Neon in Ridgewood, Queens (there's also some bonus rambling by yours truly).  Check it out at Greenpointers.com and stay tuned for details on public screenings.

Gaper and Son.

Oh yes - almost forgot: tickets are still available for my next neon walking tour, sponsored by the Municipal Art Society.  See you on December 11th!

Neon News & Links

After a bit of a hiatus here, I was all set to make a big come-back, until I managed to wipe out the post I had drafted with one ill-placed tap of my index finger.  Gone - poof.  So, while I go back to the drawing board on that, here are some links and news items, quite a few, in fact, both good and not so good.

NEON NEWS AND LINKS

• On the Brooklyn waterfront, the Domino Sugar sign is coming down (as of early November 2014).  The sign is slated to re-appear once the former sugar plant re-emerges from its transformation to luxury condos, but whether this will actually happen remains to be seen. 

The Domino Sugar sign before its removal, from the Williamsburg Bridge.  (T. Rinaldi)

• Also in Brooklyn, some especially fantastic old neon was recently unearthed during a storefront remodeling on 86th Street in Bay Ridge, only to disappear soon after.  Photo via Rolando Pujol, who reports that the sign has since vanished; whether it was removed or simply signed-over again is unclear.  The sign was the work of the late, great LaSalle Sign Corp of Brooklyn.

"Hot Bagels" made a brief re-appearance on 86th Street in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. Rolando Pujol / Instagram

• Neon's troubled state of affairs: a status check in the NYU Local, by Peter Slattery. 

• My next Neon Walking Tour of the East Village will take place on Thursday, December 11.  TICKETS NOW AVAILABLE via the Municipal Art Society at this link - bundle up and let's take a walk!

• If you've already taken my East Village neon walking tour and still want more, good news!  I will be leading a Neon Walking Tour of the *West* Village later on this winter.  Stay tuned for details!

RIP: Smith's Bar & Restaurant.  (T. Rinaldi)

• As reported here and elsewhere, Smith's Bar near Times Square shuttered just before Halloween.  No word from the owners on the fate of its spectacular 60-year old neon signs, which have graced the corner of 44th and 8th since 1954.  See write-ups on Smith's closure at the Times and at Project Neon.

• The Terminal Bar, a one-time contemporary of Smith's just down 8th Avenue, is memorialized in a great new book by Sheldon and Stefan Nadelman.  (See also this New York Neon write-up on the Terminal Bar from back in 2012 here.)

• Vanished:  the Hude's Delicatessen sign that re-appeared on Broadway this summer has disappeared.

Hudes Broadway Delicatessen. (T. Rinaldi)

• On Times Square, the Times Square Visitors Center has permanently closed.  The Visitors Center was housed in the beautiful restored auditorium of the former Embassy Theatre and featured some pretty great relics from Times Square's neon past. (News via ScoutingNY.)

Peep O-Rama sign, formerly displayed at the now-closed Times Square Visitors Center.  (T. Rinaldi)

• San Francisco Neon, a great new book by Al Barna and Randall Ann Homan paying tribute to San Francisco's superb array of old neon storefront signs, is due out in December!  Pick up your copy here. 

• Some neon (and other) ghost signs hanging around NYC, via Ephemeral New York.

• Out in Denver, Colorado, a movement to preserve the Sid King's Crazy Horse Bar sign.  

• Via Vanishing New York, lots of vanished New York Neon in a gorgeous portfolio of scenes from 1970s and 80s NYC by photographer Carl Burton.