GIMME LITTLE SIGNS: Gary’s sign bonanza

by Kevin Walsh

Time for another batch of signs picked out by FNY Correspondent and MTA employee Gary Fonville …

 

The NE corner of 116th Street & Manhattan Avenue in Harlem is where this tattered fabric sign reveals an old school Coca-Cola sign.  I used to patronize this store when I lived on Morningside Avenue back in the 1960s and early 70s.

 

This substation for the Manhattan Railway still stands on 3rd Avenue, near 99th Street in Spanish Harlem, Manhattan.  The letters were there up into a few years ago.  What happened?  There a similar looking building close to the Manhattan Bridge, Manhattan side.

Many times buildings are torn down or altered greatly in the name of progress. An FNY camera was able to document this building until they made a huge alteration.  Packard was an American luxury car brand that operated between 1899 up to the time it merged with Studebaker, another independent carmaker. Its weakness was that it didn’t have the resources of the larger carmakers such as GM, Chrysler or Ford. As a merged company, by now known as the  Studebaker-Packard Corporation,  it struggled along until 1958.  Packard had this facility at Atlantic & Classon Avenues in Brooklyn.  Fortunately it left its trace to be recorded by a  FNY camera.

 

Here’s the same building as it currently looks.

 

You know this sign is old when it’s supposed to be a dark blue and now it’s almost gray.  This public telephone sign is right off Utica Avenue near Bergen Street, Crown Heights, Brooklyn.

 

Drugs, er, pharmaceuticals are and have been sold here for many years on 3rd Avenue, near Alexander Avenue, the Bronx.

 

Eva Deli/ Grocery on Wilson Avenue, near DeKalb Avenue, in Bushwick, Brooklyn was proceeded by Iavarone Brothers, a shop that catered to its largely Italian clientele a generation or two back.

This is one of the largest street designations seen on a building.  Usually they’re in a cornerstone with small writing.  It makes clear here as to your location.  Jerome Street & Atlantic Avenue in East New York, Brooklyn.

8/8/13

5 comments

Jeff August 7, 2013 - 11:27 pm

I love these things!

Reply
Mike August 8, 2013 - 8:50 pm

thanks for all your great posts !

Reply
Jeff B. August 8, 2013 - 11:32 pm

I’m glad to see that old Coca-Cola storefront was just hidden under the awning and not destroyed. Wouldn’t it be great if store owners tore off those ugly awnings and then restore the old signs?

Reply
Linkage: Reviewing Zaha’s First NYC Project; Protesting in Gowanus – insiderater.com August 9, 2013 - 6:16 am

[…] · Activists will protest Lightstone‘s development on the Gowanus Canal [DNAinfo] · Funky little signs (sometimes erstwhile) hidden around the city [ForgottenNY] · Unsurprisingly, Eliot Spitzer made bank last year from real estate [NYT] […]

Reply
Jim Garrity August 10, 2013 - 2:53 pm

Iavarone Brothers Store is now on Grand Avenue and 69th Street in Maspeth, Queens!

Reply

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.