“Oil heats best for less,” White Plains Road north of the Nereid Avenue el station up north in Wakefield. A similar ad commissioned by the same firm can also be seen at nearby East 233rd Street at Paulding Avenue. I’ve seen similar ads with the same design and colors on White Plains Road a little further south in the Van Nest area.
Anyone know what company was advertising here?
1/13/16
9 comments
There was a general trade group (not sure of the name) representing heating oil interests versus natural gas heating. Each year, each would claim to be cheaper. Gas interests (Con Ed and Brooklyn Union) would also imply that oil heat was dirty and sooty. Oil interests (mostly independent businesses) would imply that oil was safer (natural gas could explode, but it wasn’t directly stated that way).
Gas heats best or oil heats best were common themes. A later example was the “Oil Heat’s a Dinosaur” campaign with a cute ditty to go with it, complete with a dinosaur roar.
This may have been commissioned by the Oil Heat Institute of the Bronx whose headquarters were located near the East Tremont Avenue station.
Possibly Schildwachter Oil Co.?
Paragon
Not any one company in particular. It’s likely an oil INDUSTRY sponsored ad, much like orange juice producers in Florida band together to promote consumption of orange juice , regardless of brand.
Echoing Gary, I recall that there were billboards and other ads out in Nassau county in the 60s (and maybe before) proclaiming that Oil Heats Best. I associate them with Slomins who was (and seems to still be) one of the prominent heating oil delivers (probably our house was one of their customers), but I think that it was just a general campaign for the product and not for any particular supplier.
I grew up in the Wakefield section of the Bronx. On De Reimer ave. between Neried and Pitman aves. I remember this sign viewing it from the #2train coming home from school. It was also the slogan on the side of the oil delivery truck to our home. The truck belonged to “Surefire”. I don’t know if the slogan belongs to the oil industry but this company promoted it on their fleet.
My father did an “Oil Heats Best” commercial in the late 70’s I believe because he owned a few garden apartment buildings in the Bronx and used oil fueled boilers~ I would love to find this commercial~
NOFI—-National Oil Fuel Institute, a client of my father’s printing business, a trade group with office on 42nd street. I don’t know if they still exist.