vintage mural ads & other signage by Frank H. Jump & friends
© Frank H. Jump
I remember when the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade was a fun little community event full of drag queens and local school children and their families. After 1984, it seemed to get out of control. Haven’t been to it in years. Tell me, how are they lately. Is it safe for a local drag performer?
Previously posted on FAB:
222 South Avenue © Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
Across the street from the Capron Lofts is the old V.H. Lang Trophies building. The trophy shop closed its doors last month (May) as the owners sought retirement, and it has been rumored that the building was recently sold to an unknown investor. Can you imagine lofts or retail space in this tired-looking historic structure? Will you be the change maker in this city to make that happen? – Signs of life: the next “HOT” Neighborhood? URBAN PERSPECTIVE || therochesteriat.com/signs-of-life/ JUNE 20, 2014 BY JASON SCHWINGLE
Catholic Courier, 1992
Former brewery is now the Contemporary Art Center in Brussels © Gaia Son
Spread over a century, from 1880 to 1980, the history of Wielemans-Ceuppens…merges with that of the beer industry in Belgium: exponential growth, constant adaptation to modern technology and demand market purchase of competing breweries followed by absorption by a larger, decline and closure. In 1978 the brewery was taken over by Stella Artois. The business was phased out from 1980 and on September 29, 1988 the last Wieleman Beer was brewed. The Centre was opened in 2007 in the old [Deco] building for contemporary art, after restoration and renovation works were started in 2005. – Wikipedia
Prosper Wielemans opened the Café Métropole to sell his beer. Prosper then decided to build a hotel: the Hotel Métropole, designed by Alban Chambon. © Wikipedia Commons
© Vincenzo Aiosa
Ladies Home Journal – 1921
Previously posted on FAB:
ACT ONE DOT ORG – CLICK TO SIGN THIS PETITION!
Taken on a Lemmy Caution Anthropological Stroll in August 2011 while writing the book, The Fading Ads of NYC (History Press, 2011) © Frank H. Jump
From the book Fading Ads of NYC (History Press, 2011) © Frank H. Jump 1997
It was not uncommon to see companies advertising constituent products for a final larger product as you see in signs for “coat fronts” and here for raw furs. It is surprising to see ginseng sold next to animal furs. I’ve often wondered about the history of this trade.
Not surprisingly, many of the things we traded came from China. Today, goods produced and bought from the Chinese are driving our whole consumer economy, which to some is a blessing and others a curse. American consumers enjoy lower prices for goods while American producers are literally digging for ginseng. What’s fascinating is it all began with furs and ginseng.
On the JSTOR Plant website, a bit of history and etymology of ginseng is offered: Ginseng enters the English and French vocabularies in the ages of exploration. In the French as early as 1750, in English in 1654, and for Portuguese, the term ginsao appeared even earlier (Holmes, 283). In Chinese, 人蔘 (phonetically rénshēn) is the name for ginseng and that roughly translates as “man root.” Even the Chinese character 人 is meant to look like a man with two legs. So there you have it. A little linguistic lesson for the day.
So, the ginseng trade has been well established for centuries and has turned a tidy profit for many, including that beacon of 19th century New York City life, John Jacob Astor. Astor was one of the more ambitious people ever to set foot on American soil. Astor, German by birth, landed in the United States in 1784 just at the end of the Revolutionary War, immediately established himself in the fur trade with Quebec, and became incredibly wealthy. Not being content relying on middlemen, Astor bought his own ship for sending his furs to London, learned of the East India Company trade with China, and immediately capitalized in the Chinese demand for furs. Hard to imagine that this woody root—once used as an aphrodisiac and currently used as a mild organic stimulant in alternative energy drinks, with claims to countless other benefits—was also the root of New York’s trade with China.
Apparently, George Washington had heard about the Chinese need for ginseng and learned there was a huge supply growing indigenously in North America. Since the only crop we could grow that would be valuable to the Chinese at the time was ginseng, which wasn’t being used widely in the United States, it became a valued U.S. export. On a Chinese cultural website, the following historical facts were provided: Ginseng helped promote the formation of the notion of international trade in the US. The entire country was connected to trade with China. Not only merchants in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, but isolated farmers in deep mountains had learned that they could be paid by something grown in the northern slope of the mountains. About the same time when the Empress of China unloaded the Ginseng at China, George Washington (1732–1799) met some people who were doing Ginseng business in Virginia. He recorded it in his diary, “I met numbers of Persons & Pack horses going in with Ginseng: & for salt & other articles at the Market Below.”
In today’s market, there is still a great demand for ginseng. Although our more lucrative exports lay in automobiles and other technology, China produces its own. In the American producer’s dig for a new ginseng, let’s hope the only commodity left to trade with China isn’t just our national debt. – Taken from the Fading Ads of New York City (History Press, 2011) © Frank H. Jump
Check out Walter Grutchfield’s website!
Date: 29-30 November 2014, 10am-5pm
Venue: Van Zee Sign Co, 55 33rd St (Studio A319), Brooklyn
Cost: $395 for two days, includes all equipment and refreshments
Bookings: www.betterletters.co/events/mike-meyer-hand-lettering-workshop-new-york
All enquiries: Sam Roberts at Better Letters, info@betterletters.co or +44 7989 409 046
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