Mayon Crating and Shipping was once one of the many river-associated businesses in what was once called the Lower West Side but is now called Tribeca, the Triangle Below Canal Street. Even though the building at the corner of Desbrosses and Washington Streets was built in the 1880s and was likely mixed-use in that remote age, it was re-converted to residential in about 1980, at which time Mayon had likely gone out of business.
If you look closely at the painted sign you can see that it is a palimpsest over a much-older sign below it. What happens is that paint gradually thins over the decades and fades enough to allow a view of what was once there. There’s too much of the latterday Mayon sign in place to allow me to read what the older sign says though I’d be happy to hear in Comments what you think it says.
I must confess, Desbrosses is one of those Manhattan streets I’ve never heard pronounced. I imagine by now it’s pronounced as spelled, dez-BRAWS-sez. It was named for a colonial-era Huguenot (French Protestant) candy maker and at that time, it probably had a French pronunciation, day-BRO.
5/12/16
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The word under the close-up picture seems to be “TAYLOR”