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Urban Archaeology

Booker Travels to TriBeCa with The Fading Ads Tour!

Dec 31st, 2013
by Frank.
3 comments

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Booker Travels is a series of weekly webisodes about traveling and living life outside. Teenage travelers are the new explorers of the world we live in, the re-discoverers of our planet and now, the guides to our travels. Booker Travels is an original program by B Travels Network.

Hosted by 16-year-old Booker and his friends, Booker Travels documents journeys to great destinations through their eyes. Teenage travelers are the new explorers of the world we live in, the re-discoverers of our planet and now, the guides to our travels. – Booker Travels/About

This past Saturday I had the pleasure to walk the Fading Ads of TriBeCa tour with Booker, his mom- producer & director, Tânia Cypriano and cameraman Daniel Burity. Together we set out on a discovery of TriBeCa’s vintage advertising, faux vintage ads & architectural attractions. Airing of this episode of Booker Travels is tentatively set for the Spring of 2014.

Radium Rubber – Maastricht, NL – Mestreech

Apr 13th, 2012
by fadingad.
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© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

This is such a coincidence that I was in Maastricht this week with my mother and I took these images of this smokestack and the bloggers from Finland below posted a series postings of their urban explorations of this abandoned factory.

I saw this smokestack from the bus window and get excited immediately because of its ominous name. When we were photographing in the park nearby I wanted as well to go there and see what there was. Visited by skkye 5-6.4.2012.

 

UW Tacoma work erases historic icon – Peter Callaghan – The News Tribune

May 28th, 2010
by Frank.
5 comments

© Vincenzo Aiosa

The Student Prince loved his beer.

And beer lovers in Tacoma loved the Student Prince.

I say loved – past tense – because the Student Prince is dead. The last large image of the iconic advertising symbol of local brew Alt Heidelberg was washed away from the side of the University of Washington Tacoma’s Joy Building during renovation.

“We’re deeply saddened and dismayed and heartsick over this,” said UWT spokesman Mike Wark. He said the UWT strives to preserve the historic painted signs it inherited but was told by a subcontractor that the condition of this one was too fragile to withstand brick cleaning and tuck pointing.

Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/05/27/1202505/uw-tacoma-work-erases-historic.html#ixzz0pAzk2tKK

I wrote the piece today about the destruction of the alt Heidelberg ghostsign in Tacoma. I’m now wrestling with people who say it isn’t that big a deal because it can just be repainted. I’m trying to explain why that just isn’t the same (and would be a bad idea to try). Can you give me some help? What is the beauty of ghost signs that demands that they be original, that they be apparitions that we discover? As bad as this mistake is, I think it would be made worse by some attempt to repaint the Student Prince.

Thanks. Enjoy your page.
Peter Callaghan
The News Tribune
Tacoma, WA

Previously posted:
  • Alt Heidelberg – Columbia Brewing Co – Tacoma, WA – Fading Ad Blog

Laundromat – Dry Cleaning – Graffiti – July, 2008 – Barcelona, Spain

Feb 13th, 2010
by Frank.
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July 2008 © Frank H. Jump

Home Pick-up & Delivery © Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

Off La Ronda del Littoral © Frank H. Jump

© Frank H. Jump

The City Concealed – Up in the Fulton Ferry Hotel – Joseph Mitchell – Thirteen dot org

Feb 18th, 2009
by fadingad.
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Venture back up into the old hotel, immortalized by Joseph Mitchell in his 1952 New Yorker story, The Cave, later retitled, Up in the Old Hotel. - Channel Thirteen

Venture back up into the old hotel, immortalized by Joseph Mitchell in his 1952 New Yorker story, "The Cave," later retitled, "Up in the Old Hotel." - Channel Thirteen

The City Concealed: Up in the Fulton Ferry Hotel from Thirteen.org on Vimeo.

Read more about: The City Concealed: Up in the Fulton Ferry Hotel at Thirteen dot org

Lost America: Night Photography of the Abandoned West – Troy Paiva

Sep 1st, 2008
by fadingad.
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ROY'S 2008 First time I tried to shoot this classic Amboy, California sign in at night, the owner chased me off with a shotgun. This time, there wasn't a soul to be found. © Troy Paiva

My buddy Alex Richman (Sidewalk Photography) turned me on to Paiva’s remarkable & haunting site Lost America. In correspondence with Paiva, he asked that I mention that his images are now available in the new Chonicle Book (SF)– Night Vision – The Art of Urban Exploration – released July 2008 – can be bought at Amazon.com.

Thank YOU Kevin Walsh!

Jul 12th, 2008
by fadingad.
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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.

Reckitt’s Blue – Ten Years Ago Today – Revisiting The NY Times Metro Section – Front & Second Pages – July 9, 1998

Jul 9th, 2008
by fadingad.
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NY Times Metro Section - July 9, 1998

Saving Images of Dead Signs on Walls - by Randy Kennedy - Public Lives - NY Times July 9, 1998

Another chapter in my very public life. Transparency, transparency – are we ever really naked? [Sung to tune of “O Tannenbaum”]

Just in from Flatbush Pigeon – Peaks Mason Mints – Brooklyn Heights

Jun 1st, 2008
by fadingad.
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Peaks Mason Mints - Flatbush Pigeon
© Flatbush Pigeon

Dear Mr. Hotshot,
I know you have amassed a huge collection of beautifully composed photographs of most (if not all) faded ads in Brooklyn and beyond. However, I can’t help being visually struck by these relics and instantly thinking of you. So, a hotshot like you probably already has snapped this one but if not, here ya go. (Taken somewhere around Fulton and Hicks).
Cheers,
Erin, The Pige

Thanks for thinking of me Erin!

Human Pair in Open Air Messy Living Room (Impeach Bush) – Red Hook, Brooklyn

Jan 11th, 2008
by fadingad.
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Human Pair In Open Air Messy Living Room - Red Hook, Brooklyn

Human Pair In Open Air Messy Living Room - Red Hook, Brooklyn

Human Pair In Open Air Messy Living Room - Red Hook, Brooklyn

Human Pair In Open Air Messy Living Room - Red Hook, Brooklyn
© Frank H. Jump

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