AS the years pass, more and more of the “faded ads” that I encountered in Forgotten NY’s early days 25 years ago are disappearing or ravaged by the elements. And sometimes they have help disappearing. Take this sign on the side of what was formerly a shoe factory at Hewes and South 5th Street in Williamsburg, which looked like the image on the left in 1999. The ad was visible from the northbound Hewes Street el platform on Broadway.
The ad has considerably faded over the years, and the local youth have set to work with their usual grim determination to put their stamp on the neighborhood.
Brooklyn’s Broadway formerly had a numerous array of faded ads like this, and the very first Forgotten NY tour on June 1st, 1999, marched down Broadway from the East River to East New York (with a train ride from Flushing Avenue to Chauncey Street) to take a peek at them.
The non-English script on the shoe factory ad uses Hebrew characters but is actually in Yiddish. FNY correspondent Sergey Kadinsky:
Although I can speak and understand some Yiddish, you should really thank my grandpa Z. Vaysbukh, who can read and speak the language perfectly.
The line below ”Shoe Factory ” reads a word for general production of the factory besides shoes: HABERDASHERY, which means that the factory also used to make socks, shirts, bracelets, pants, etc.
As for the now-obscured bottom portion:
Forgotten Fan Moshe Rapoport: The bottom line reads Scouring Powder Produkten (products).
Thus, the factory produced both clothing and cleaning products, likely two separate companies.
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5/29/24