vintage mural ads & other signage by Frank H. Jump & friends
© Frank H. Jump
Another Mullins vintage mural ad was seen from the elevated line off Broadway in Williamsburg and is featured on Kevin Walsh’s Forgotten-NY website- spotted during one of the first Forgotten Walks. [http://forgotten-ny.com/1999/01/on-broadway-brooklyns-broadway-el-has-a-fascinating-collection-of-old-advertising/]
Frank Jump & Kevin Walsh @ Fading Ad Gallery in 2004
Might as Well jUmP! – Reflections on the Color Blue
In early July 1998, I was seated in my office at a well-known direct marketer on Long Island when someone—I forget who—left a New York Times article on my desk. I was enraptured as I read about a man who was just as fascinated by the fading remnants of a forgotten New York as I was and documented his discoveries on the worldwide web, as it was known in those days. His name was Frank Jump, and he ran, and still runs, a website dedicated to the “faded ads” that dot New York City’s landscapes.
The year 1998 was still the wild west days for what we now know as the Internet, but the web was beginning to assert itself as the Number One disseminator of information; where previously, amateur chroniclers had to finance and print up periodicals known as “zines” to get across their obsessions and desires, here was a golden opportunity for a cheap means of getting across what you wanted to say. The word “blog” hadn’t been invented yet, but thousands of mavens were beginning to poke their heads above the muck and make their thoughts known worldwide. Today, bloggers influence elections, elect players to all-Star games and influence the entertainment industry and everything else in every corner of life you can name, but in the late 1990s, it was mainly a hobbyists’ forum.
So it was this incredible Frank Jump photograph of Reckitt’s Blue that prompted me to sketch out on scrap paper what I wanted for Forgotten New York that memorable day in that direct marketing office. The circa 1890 ad for a laundry product manufactured by Reckitt’s known simply as “Blue” was hidden for many years behind a building on Washington Avenue and Dean Street in Brooklyn; when the building was torn down, lo and behold: there it was. Reckitt’s Blue happens to be my favorite shade of blue, by the way—and according to a Forgotten fan who wrote in to inform me, the color of the ad is: C-67.45 percent, M-34.9 percent, Y-7.84 percent, K-1.57 percent, taken from percentages from RGB monitor samples. The original color, considering the fade, may have been closer to C-74.51 percent, M-48.63 percent, Y-23.92 percent, K-10.59 percent.
In May 2005, author and friend Dawn Eden published an article for the Daily News about fading ads [pictured above] on which Jump and I collaborated.
– Might As Well Jump! – Kevin Walsh
CHECK OUT FORGOTTEN NYs NEW BLOGGY LOOK!
© Frank H. Jump
L & H Stern were Ludwig and Hugo Stern. Hugo Stern (1872-?) was in business in Brooklyn in the Cigars and Tobacco business as early as 1899. Ludwig Stern (1877-1942) emigrated from Germany as a young man, worked for a time for the Metropolitan Tobacco Co., then founded L & H Stern in 1911. They were originally located in Manhattan on East 10th St. (Ludwig Stern, president; Hugo Stern, vice-president & secretary; and Benjamin Zeichner, treasurer) and moved to Brooklyn in the area now called DUMBO (Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) around 1920. They manufactured “smoker’s articles,” with a specialty in briar pipes. They remained in business at this location until the mid-1960’s. – Walter Grutchfield
Walter Grutchfield 14to42.net
The Fading Ad Blog, among other notable blogs on the subject – was mentioned again by the NY Times. J. David Goodman wrote a wonderful article that focuses on what I have coined “fading ads” and the work of the veteran urban archaeologist – Walter Grutchfield of the 14to42 website.
Before I started The Fading Ad Campaign in 1997, these urban palimpsests were known as ghost signs. In an attempt to raise them from the dead, I used the term fading ads since I was wrestling with my own mortality with HIV/AIDS and drawing parallels to these signs’ unexpected long life and my own. I see them as metaphors of survival rather than a spectral afterglow of capitalism’s castoffs.
In 1999 when I launched my website, I realized I belonged to a community of urban archaeologist that included the likes of William Stage (Riverfront Times & Ghost Signs), James Lileks (The Bleat), Kevin Walsh (Forgotten-NY) and Walter Grutchfield – all of whom were supportive of my early online presence. Since then, a wave of documentation has occurred on both sides of the Atlantic with Sam Roberts UK Brick Ads in London and other micro sites in the US from Lawrence O’Toole’s Philadelphia Ghost Sign Project and Jeremiah’s Vanishing NY.
Jamaica Avenue & New Jersey Avenue near the entrance to the Jackie Robinson © Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
I’ve shot this sign over the past twelve years and never took a long exposure at night.
Elsewhere on the Internet:
NYC Subway dot org © Joe Testagrose 1969
NYC Subway dot org © Joe Testagrose 1977
NYC Subway dot org © Zach Summer 2008
Kevin Walsh (Forgotten NY) sent me these links with the caption “Watch a painted ad fade.” Thanks for the tip!
Jump & Walsh holding NY Daily News spread on which they collaborated.
Vincenzo and I are traveling abroad, currently driving through Piedmont, Italy, The Alps & Provence France & Barcelona, Sitges, and The Costa Brava of Spain – shooting fading ads and other ephemera. I’ve been posting from here sporadically in between a month’s worth of scheduled postings of Brooklyn, NYC & Queens. I’ve noticed an incredible amount of traffic on my site from Kevin Walsh’s Forgotten-NY and was surprised and honored to see the generous and heartfelt posting on his site about when we first met.
Ten years surely goes by quickly, yet it has been ten years filled with meaningful and formative collaborations. Kevin’s site continues to inspire and direct the course of urban archaeology. I’m grateful to have met him at the time I started the Fading Ad Campaign in 1997- knowing that I wasn’t the only crazy person interested in the documentation of urban ephemera and the passing of time.
© Forgotten NY
Urban Exploration with Forgotten-NY.com from Brian Lehrer Live on Vimeo.
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