The rapidly gentrifying, upscaling Bowery, formerly home to NYC’s entertainment district, the Third Avenue Elevated and flophouses has its own fiefdoms that are little remarked upon. One stretch is home to wholesale indoor lighting. When cash registers were more than kitsch, there were several outlets where retailers could acquire the latest and greatest. Today, the Bowery still boasts a large number of kitchen equipment wholesalers and remains a mecca for restaurateurs.
Globe Slicers, on the west side of the Bowery at #266 between Stanton and Houston, boasts a marvelously hand lettered sign that appears as if it has been there since the meat cutting emporium opened in 1947.
But this is not the case. A series of photos at A Journey Through Chinatown reveals that the current sign replaced a somewhat more orderly-appearing hand lettered sign as recently as 2009.
Not only that, a further look at the NYC Municipal Archives in the 1980s at #266 shows a completely different sign entirely, though it’s tough to make out in the fuzzy scan.
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7/20/21
14 comments
Apparently still in business.
I believe the sign from 2009 is the same sign when it was new, with its bright yellow background. This more current photo shows how it looks after aging and fading perhaps by sun exposure. The letter forms and the graphic on the left are identical to the 2009 sign. It is unlikely that a new rendition was made.
No they’re different.
Yes you’re right, I didn’t scroll all the way down before commenting. Thanks for this website!
It’s my home town.
For some reason, articles about businesses all clustered together always reminds me of Ben Katchor’s comic strip
Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer (a profession which Google Earth has pretty well rendered obsolete). Knipl would frequently be in the “Hair Care Products District,” or the “Copying Machine District” or whatnot, in a city that certainly
resembled New York very closely, though the street names were pretty much unlike any in NYC.
About Ben Katchor… I went to Brooklyn College with him and worked on many a comic fanzine with him back in the day. A superb cartoonist!
As for trade districts in Manhattan… I bought my first electric typewriter in the “typewriter district” on 23rd Street between 5th and 6th Avenues, just south of the “flower district” on Sixth Avenue in the mid twenties.
For some reason New York used to have neighborhoods which specialized in certain industries.All
the diamond merchants are in the west 40s.Wholesale flowers were in the west 20s.All the machine
tool dealers were in Soho,etc.I think this followed a European model that is no longer necessary.
In the 1970s, the apartments upstairs were home to Debbie Harry/Chris Stein and above them Stephen Sprouse.
I can’t help it but this brings to mind a certain Seinfeld episode:
Kramer: Here’s what I wanna do; I think I can get a section…
George: Whoa, whoa, a section?!
Kramer: Yeah, if I could crab my slicer and he’d hold still…
George: No, you’re not taking a deli slicer to my boss…
Are you interested in pictures of signs your readers come across? Would love to share some. Especially ones of companies that were conglomerates and vanished.
I do a lot of business with Dan, the owner — great, honest guy, and they do great work at a fair price. If your ever in need of restaurant equipment, this place is great.
Globe is the brand of slicer they sell and service (see the colon on the sign). I worked at Globe-Monte-Metro (food service equipment) in Ridgewood in the early ’80s. The slicer brand name was part of the company name there also, along with Metro for their wire shelves (I think Monte was one of the owner’s names?).
Globe Slicers features prominently in the “old timey” NYC
Photos NYU uses to decorate the walls of its gym in the
basement of the new building 181 Mercer