Celebrating at Europa Pizzeria in Bensonhurst with Barbara Snow & Enzo © Frank H. Jump
Fading Ads of NYC – the book
Ancient ad ‘reins’ over Times Square By SUSANNAH CAHALAN – NY POST
The oldest still-standing advertisement in New York City — there for more than a century — is hidden in, of all places, Times Square.
“J.A. Keal’s Carriage Manufactory Repairing” — at 47th and Broadway — was painted on the side of a brick building in 1874, back when horses galloped through Gotham.
The billboard, now hidden at the southwest corner of Broadway that has Roxy Delicatessen on its ground floor, is featured in Brooklyn elementary-school teacher Frank Jump’s new book, “Fading Ads of New York City” (The History Press), out this week.
Jump photographed the “ghost sign,” as many of the old ads are called, when it was briefly exposed in 1998.
PHOTOS: FRANK JUMP
WHOA! Survivors of a simpler time, these ads in Times Square (pictured) and 19th-century customers who depended on horses for transportation.
An adjacent building at 1567 Broadway was torn down before a new building was erected and connected to the towering W Hotel that currently stands behind it.
The city’s oldest still-visible ad is in Chelsea, the book says. Painted in white on a red-brick building at 109 W. 17th St. around 1900, the ad sells “Carriages, Coupes and Hansoms.”
Jump, who teaches at PS 119 Amersfort School, has documented 5,000 ads since 1997. Only a third are still standing.
These two survivors have been lucky to make it into the 21st century, as neither building is landmarked, city officials said. – scahalan@nypost.com
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Brooklyn Photographer Captures Relics of a Bygone Era by Caitlin McNamara – Brooklyn Eagle
In ever-changing New York City, the old often falls to make way for the new. One instance of this is the slow but accelerating disappearance of the fading “ghost” advertisements, those signs painted on walls, often high above the city’s sidewalks, offering curious glimpses to the observant into a culture of the past.
Frank Jump has been passionately documenting these ads for 20 years, since his discovery of the Omega Oil ads in Harlem. For Jump, the ads have become “a metaphor for survival… as many of these ads have long outlived their expected life span.”
Although this project isn’t directly about HIV/AIDS, Jump likens his fading ad photo campaign to his more than 25-year survival with HIV. On his website he writes, “It is no accident I’ve chosen to document such a transitory and evanescent subject.”
Frank Jump (left) and husband Aiosa at at the National Equality March for LGBT Rights in Washington on Oct. 11, 2009. taken by B. Snow
A New York native, Jump has lived with his husband, Vincenzo Aiosa, in Brooklyn since 1989. Jump continues to document these “ghost ads” today, and regularly updates his blog on the same topic [www.fadingad.com]. – CLICK HERE TO READ MORE!
