vintage mural ads & other signage by Frank H. Jump & friends
© Nathan Tweti
David W. Dunlap writes the following about Bickford’s:
If you lived in New York anytime from the 1930’s through the 1960’s, chances are you knew Bickford’s. They were up and down Broadway, on Fordham Road and the Grand Concourse in the Bronx, Nostrand Avenue and Fulton Street in Brooklyn, Main Street and Jamaica Avenue in Queens.
“Breakfast at Bickford’s is an old New York custom,” a 1964 guidebook said. “In these centrally located, speedy-service, modestly-priced restaurants a torrent of traffic is sustained for a generous span of hours with patrons who live so many different lives on so many different shifts.”
To say the least. The best minds of Allen Ginsberg’s generation “sank all night in submarine light of Bickford’s,” he wrote in “Howl.” The Beat Generation muse, Herbert Huncke, practically inhabited the Bickford’s on West 42nd Street. Walker Evans photographed Bickford’s customers, and Andy Warhol rhapsodized about Bickford’s waitresses. Bickford’s make its way into the work of writers as diverse as Woody Allen and William Styron.[i]
“Death (being edged to the doorway): Where’s a good hotel? What am I talking about hotel, I got no money. I’ll go sit in Bickford’s. (He picks up the News).”
—Getting Even, Woody Allen
“How vividly there still lingers on my palate the suety aftertaste of the Salisbury steak at Bickford’s, or Riker’s western omelette, in which one night, nearly swooning, I found a greenish, almost incorporeal feather and a tiny embryonic beak.”
—Sophie’s Choice, William Styron
[i] Dunlap, “Old York,” New York Times, www.nytimes.com/2000/12/10/nyregion/old-york-look-close-this-ever-new-town-you-will-see-traces-past-peeking-through.html.
10th and Union, Capitol Hill © Fred King
Apparently this business still operates out of Mahwah, NJ. According to Bloomsberg Business Week:
H. W. Baker Linen Co. Inc. supplies textile products, amenities, and guest room supplies to hotels and motels. It offers bed, bath, and dining linens to the hospitality industry. The company also provides bedding products, table linens, blankets, duvets, towels, and robes, as well as bathroom amenities, appliances, guest room essentials, and apparels. In addition, it offers front and back-of-the-house apparels and non-textile guest room supplies. Its clientele includes Westin, the Ritz-Carlton, Marriott, Fairfield, and Sheraton. The company was founded in 1892 and is based in Jersey City, New Jersey. As of December 22, 2006, H. W. Baker Linen Co. Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Dan River, Inc.
Elsewhere on the Internet:
Harvey Milk Lives - Graffiti in lower right quadrant © Sandra Walker, RI
Queens Blvd & 71st © Nick Hirshon
I’m learning from you to snap these signs during their potentially brief time of exposure. Crews recently tore down a row of small businesses along Queens Boulevard between 71st Road and 71st Drive. They exposed the blue ad on the bottom of the photograph. Looks like there’s something beneath it, too, but I couldn’t see it from the street. – Nick Hirshon
Courtesy of Tom Tryniski’s Old Fulton History © Brooklyn Eagle
The sign company was owned by a Frederick W. Kurtz.
© Caroline D. Roswell
John A. Schwarz was born in New York in the late 1850’s to German immigrants. He began as a clerk in a furniture store. In 1876 He opened his first store in Brooklyn, at the 838-40 Broadway address on the ad. When he started out he only had a 20 foot space in the 838 building, but business grew until he took over the entire building and the building next store. So the 838-40 address refers to building numbers 838 and 840 Broadway.
John died in 1906 and the business was taken over by his sons, John Jr. Edward and Frank.
In 1910 they opened another location at 1321 and later 1319 Broadway.
The 334 Livingston Street store was opened in 1922 and the 16601 Jamaica Avenue store around 1925, so one can guess the ad was painted in or around 1925. (since another store was opened in 1926 at 1535 Broadway, which took over Phelan’s Furniture Company.
According to a 1921 ad from the Broklyn Daily Eagle, John was quite a friendly guy, and when his first store opened people were more than happy to buy furniture from him, which was instrumental in growth of the business. – Caroline D. Roswell as taken from My Old NY Just Ain’t What She Used to Be
CLICK TO SEE Tom Tryniski’s Old Fulton History – Brooklyn Eagle
Wagnerowicz @ My Old NY Just Ain’t What She Used to Be did a fantastic job researching this sign. I was notified by Caroline about the sign on the day I broke my ankle and was unable to get to it in time. It was covered up in just two days.
© Caroline D. Roswell
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