© Vincenzo Aiosa
CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE © Frank H. Jump
CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE © Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
Ghost signs, ghost ads & other phantoms
Stella d’Oro Restaurant – E. Paul Sayegh Law Offices – Kingsbridge, Bronx NYC
Broadway & W237th Street © Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
Fudge-filled cookies and crunchy breadsticks. Stella D’oro, Italian for star of gold, instantly conjures images of baked goods in the minds of people throughout the country. For the Kingsbridge factory’s nearby neighbors, its distinctive scripted logo can also trigger memories of batting for the Stella D’oro Little League team, eating in the Stella D’oro restaurant or coming home from school and being carried away by the aroma of the cookies being made.
The company that began in 1930 is likely to end its nearly 80 year run in Kingsbridge when the factory is shut down in October. To its neighbors and the family that can claim the famous fragrance as its legacy, the decades have been about more than just cookies.
Joseph Kresevich, an Italian immigrant, and his wife, Angela Kresevich, opened up their first factory on Bailey Avenue around 1930 (there’s actually no family consensus on the company’s official beginning, though its trucks have that year emblazoned across them).
The Kresevichs moved the plant to its current location on West 237th Street and Broadway around 1950 and also opened up a red-checkered-tablecloth restaurant on the site within the decade. – Riverdale Press
- That’s the way the cookies crumble in Kingbridge – Riverdale Press, 7/23/09
- Stella D’oro – Eating in Translation – May 2, 2010
Champlain Building – 37 South Wabash Avenue, Chicago, IL
Originally called the Powers Building – Entire floors – Offices & Shops – CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE
© Vincenzo Aiosa
Holabird & Roche have the distinction of designing two buildings in Chicago that eventually bore the same name, the Champlain… [In 1902] the building was built by a consortium of investors on a piece of property that already had a building standing on it. The architectural firm was so good at what they did that their 13-story tower opened for occupancy in December of 1902, just 8 months after demolition had begun on the old building… In 1938 after the Powers name change, the building underwent a “modernization” which stripped the first two floors of their original facades… By 1988 the School of the Art Institute itself was outgrowing their studio building at the museum and purchased the nearby Champlain for additional class and office space. – Design Slinger
- Champlain Building (1902) Holabird & Roche, architects– Design Slinger
- A Landmark Dispute – Why The Art Institute Supports Preservation-usually – September 05, 1993 By Blair Kamin, Chicago Tribune Architecture Critic.
Lyon & Healy – Everything Known In Music – Washburn – Chicago, IL
© Vincenzo Aiosa
© Vincenzo Aiosa
From Hubert Pleijsier’s book, Washburn Prewar Instrument Styles: Guitars, Mandolins, Banjos and Ukuleles 1883-1940:
© Hubert Pleijsier – Google Books
Fading Ads of the Village: A Lecture by Frank Jump @ Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation
Fading Ads of the Village: A Lecture by Frank Jump
Wednesday, November 28
6:30 – 8:00 p.m.
Washington Square Institute, 41-51 East 11th Street, 4th Floor
Free; reservations required
RSVP to rsvp@gvshp.org or 212-475-9585 ext. 35
From New York’s iconic skyline to its side alleys, the new is perpetually being built on the debris of the past. For nearly twenty years, Frank Jump has been documenting the fading ads that are visible, but less often seen, all over New York. Disappearing from the sides of buildings or hidden by new construction, these signs are remnants of lost eras of New York’s life. This photo-documentary is also a study of time and space, of mortality and living, as Jump’s campaign to capture the ads mirrors his own struggle with HIV. During this presentation that will focus on the fading ads of the Village, experience the ads–shot with vintage Kodachrome film–and the meaning they carry through acclaimed photographer and urban documentarian Frank Jump’s lens. His book,Fading Ads of New York, will be available for sale and signing.
John Winkler’s Sons – Storage – Carpet Cleaning – Motor Car Storage – Allied Van Lines – Far Rockaway, QU
A general view of the Far Rockaway station… In the mid 1920s – Courtesy of The Wave – CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE
John Winkler’s Sons – Fur Storage © Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
John Winkler’s Sons Motor Van Service – Allied Van Lines © Frank H. Jump
John Winkler’s Sons Rug Cleaning © Frank H. Jump CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE
CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE © State of NY – Queensboro Public Library/Rockaway Memories dot com
Photographer: Ron Ziel on Sept. 15, 1937 © Rockaway Memories dot com CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE
Brooklyn Daily Star – December 26, 1912 – Courtesy of Fulton History dot com
Bulletin of the American Warehousemen’s Association – No. 185 Vol. XVI – July 1915 – Google Books
Internet resources:
- Historical Views of the Rockaways & Rockaway History – The Wave
- The Far Rockaway of My Mind – Rockaway Memories dot com
- The Far Rockaway Train Station Then & Now – Rockaway Memories dot com
- Brooklyn Daily Star – December 26, 1912 – Courtesy of Fulton History dot com
- Bulletin of the American Warehousemen’s Association – No. 185 Vol. XVI – July 1915 – Google Books
Hand-Painted Signs of Kratie by Sam Roberts
© Sam Roberts
Flying pigs, retro hairstyles and hand grenades are among some of the images found in this new book celebrating the art and craft of Cambodia’s hand-painted advertising.
Sam Roberts, a long-time member of the visual anthropological and urban archaeological community, has published his first book Hand-Painted Signs of Kratie, a brilliant and colorful monograph that “introduces the signs, the people who paint them and uses them to explore Cambodia’s art, culture and history.” Mr. Roberts has authored the website and archival project called Ghostsigns UK and has been instrumental in the historic preservation and documentation of vintage painted adverts in his island nation. Roberts was drawn to this “quirky” form of hand-painted advertising while he and his wife Gilly were doing humanitarian work with Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) in Cambodia.
While the signs have experienced something of a resurgence in the last three decades, they now face another demise, this time at the hands of technological and economic development. In this respect, author Sam Roberts draws parallels with his interest in ‘Ghostsigns’, the fading remains of advertising painted on buildings in his native UK: “The loss of hand-painted signs marks a distinct period in countries’ economic development. It is the point at which access to technology and rising labour costs tip the balance in favour of mechanical or digital formats. In the UK this happened in the middle of the last century, in Cambodia it is happening today.”
I’m looking forward to getting my first peek at this remarkable book by this accomplished author who also featured an essay on fading ads in my book last year.
