I was stalking up 33rd Street in Astoria, on my way from a nutritious Whopper at Burger King to my biweekly penitence at the Greater Astoria Historical Society when I spotted this marvelously bricked building at 28-25. They didn’t settle for the usual Flemish bond here. Probably everything you see here has an architectural term attached to it, but I’ll just say I liked the ached brick over the doorway, the seemingly random bricking at the entrance, and the occasional brick that juts out of the side walls. I’ve been partial to brick facing for some time.
There’s also this fallout shelter sign, from the 1950s when we thought we would be safe from atomic attack. When the blast finally hits, we’ll mercifully be vaporized in a split second; what a way to go… This specimen, one of hundred remaining ones around town, is very well preserved. You can see that they included a “capacity” blank for building owners to fill in.
These signs came in two sizes, with a much-harder to find larger version, which I’ll write about sometime soon.
7/17/14
5 comments
Are the Fallout Shelter signs really from the 50s? I was born in ’55 and seem to remember them first popping up around 1960 or so. Prior to that all the shelters had signs with the big “CD” symbol, which stood for Civil Defense, and just said SHELTER. I think that design was probably leftover from WWII.
As detailed here – http://conelrad.blogspot.com/2011/06/indelible-cold-war-symbol-complete.html – the standard fallout shelter sign made its debut on the Westchester County Building (now th eMichaelin Office Building) in White Plains, New York on October 4, 1961.
A very handsome entrance! I would call it a keyhole entrance facade. I like everything about it, the asymmetry, the narrow tall window to one side, also with it’s own arch framing. The unusual brickwork appears to be carried down even to insets in the brick banisters. Thanks for sharing as usual! I’ve missed seeing your FB posts (no doubt in the unchallengeable wisdom of FB’s decisions on what I should or should not see on my newfeed, your posts have not received the prominence that they deserve IMO).
Sidebar comment: http://gothamist.com/2012/06/27/30-yr-old_woman_found_dead_in_astor.php
Check it out in Google Earth…interesting shape to that building…
http://tinyurl.com/nkyq4dj