Fading Ad Blog

Douglas Leigh w/ Mickey Rooney – Photographed by Ted F. Leigh, MD – Archives of American Art – CLICK FOR LINK

Some years back I had the strange opportunity to dig through trash bags filled with ephemera, photographs and documents that belonged to Douglas Leigh, advertising legend – with founder of Cincinnati’s American Sign Museum, Tod Swormstedt. Leigh had died a week or so earlier and his widow Elsie was clearing out the sprawling East Side apartment that overlooked the 59th Street Bridge and East River. Here is an excerpt from Swormstedt’s essay, On Advertising Legend Douglas Leigh, that was included in my 2011 History Press book, Fading Ads of NYC.

My trip to New York was a last-minute mission of mercy. The urgency had been created by a phone call I received from Ilaria Borghese, the great-granddaughter of Douglas Leigh, the creative genius behind Times Square’s Great White Way. As she explained, Leigh’s widow (and second wife), Elsie, was planning to clean out their former Upper East Side apartment in the next two days, and all was going in a dumpster. She said, “If you want anything, you’d better get up here and grab it.” I couldn’t believe it—Douglas Leigh’s incredible legacy being tossed in a dumpster. I booked the next flight I could get to LaGuardia. As I was scrambling to get details together, I remembered Frank’s invitation from the summer before to stop by. I called him and, in a rather frantic voice, tried to explain my dilemma, asking if he could pick me up at the airport and let me stay overnight. “Sure,” he said without hesitation. “You can tell me all about it when you get here.”

Even Leigh’s Rolodex was up for grabs. Swormstedt salvaged that, and I took a box of 16mm and Super 8 films and various industry photographs. Here are some of the shots taken by Leigh’s brother Ted Flournoy Leigh who died in September of 2011, two months before the release of my book.

from the Ted F. Leigh, MD photographic archive

Ted F. Leigh, MD

This address was when Ted F. Leigh, MD was living in NYC while doing an internship at Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital from 1938 – 1940.

Ted F. Leigh, MD

So much information about New York City, advertising and its impact on our urban landscape can be gleaned from this magnificent time capsules taken by Ted F. Leigh.