CUF – July 2015 © Frank H. Jump
Earl J. Hilvers opened his Butcher Shop & Grocery on McMicken Ave. Cincinnati, Ohio in 1931. – Hilvers Website
Over-the-Rhine – June 1999 © Frank H. Jump
Vintage Embossed Tin Sign – iCollector
Ghost signs, ghost ads & other phantoms
King Bee Hats – Wrigley’s Spearmint Pepsin Gum, et. al – St. Louis, MO
June 1999 © Frank H. Jump
July 2015 © Frank H. Jump
Likely the largest existing wall sign in St. Louis, this beauty sits on the west side of what was originally the King-Brinsmade Mercantile Company and is now the King Bee Lofts. Several fading ads adorn the vast brick face, some of them partially overlapping others, having been painted at different times. From top to bottom,ad copy reads “King Bee Hats – King-Brinsmade Merc. Co.” “Wrigley’s Spearmint Pepsin Gum – Trade Mark Registered – The Flavor Lasts” and, within the pointing arrow, “Buettner’s – Seventh and Washington – Home Furnishings – Arrow Stamps.” To the right of Buettner’s is a barely legible ad for “Anti-Kamnia Tablets – Ask For A-K Tablets.” – Hats, Shoes and Overalls – Wm. Stage- The Painted Ad
Back in 1999 when I was already an Internet sensation with the Fading Ad Campaign website, I met Wm. Stage on a cross-country tour while driving a misguided friend back to New York from Santa Fe. Stage was very generous with his knowledge of signs and locations in his domain of St. Louis. We slept on his couch the evening we met and he sent me out on a photo expedition the next morning. This was one of the walls he recommended I shoot and one of the few left untouched in the last sixteen years.
Sun Chun Mei 1 – Chinese Restaurant – Closed Over Six Years – West Village, NYC
June 2015 © Frank H. Jump
I remembering coming to eat at Sung Chun Mei 1 after ACT UP meetings in the late 80s. Enzo and I would go there on occasion when in the Village. We happened upon it again after the LGBT Pride NYC and it looked so perpetually closed. I could remember the last time we were there. Pork and string beans in a brown sauce. Pan fried dumplings. Cold noodle with sesame sauce. Eggplant with garlic sauce. I found this article that mentions it called No Longer Driving the Culture, is the Village Now “a Geography of Nowhere?” in the Washington Square Park Blog where Catherine says:
I knew Sung Chun Mei, the restaurant referenced in the article as closed and sitting shuttered for six years (picture above), well. It was a vibrant thriving business, a Chinese restaurant I considered my “go to” place to order dinner often. It is hard for me to even think of it as closed.
Jeremiah Moss references Sung Chun Mei more recently on September 28th in his Vanishing NY Blog. Living in Brooklyn, working in Brooklyn – I am so out of touch with Manhattan anymore. So much is changing in Flatbush, I find it hard to keep up with the changes and harder still to keep up with what isn’t changing beyond my immediate horizon.
