There must have been a time when the familiar script handwritten signature of Charles H. Fletcher stuck fear in the hearts of crumb crunchers everywhere. Fletcher began selling his Castoria, a mild…
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During recent scuttlings in the Midtown area, I passed right through Times Square, a place I’m rarely spotted, because in general, crowds don’t much interest me. This particular morning the…
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The Coca-Cola script logo is virtually unchanged for over 110 years — there are variances in the stroke and swash widths in the lettering but that’s about it. When I…
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“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…
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In 2014 the last trace of the Albert Merrill School vanished as this ad on West 29th Street near 8th Avenue was painted over. The school promised training in computer…
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The application of gold leaf on glass is becoming as lost an art as are painted ads on buildings. Nestled above #5 West 31st Street up until recently was an…
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Every couple of years, when I’m in the neighborhood, I skulk around to a 5-story walkup apartment building at #287 West 147th Street between Adam Claton Powell and Frederick Douglass…
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Usually, when an ancient ad starts fading that’s bad news because its legibility is ruined. But I’ve found a sign at 117 East 24th Street, a couple of blocks east…
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A painted campaign ad for John Vliet Lindsay has been in view for a few years on Flatbush Avenue, visible as you are traveling south at the X-shaped intersection with…
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While stumbling around Tribeca scouting the ForgottenTour that was held on October 4, 2015, I saw this painted ad at #77 Hudson Street just south of Harrison Street, and I…
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51 East 42nd Street is an 18th Century Beaux Arts office tower at the NW corner of East 42nd Street and Vanderbilt Avenue that runs all the way north to…
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photo: Kyle DeMilo For aficionados of ancient painted signage, Fletcher’s Castoria ads have been a staple for decades: the mild children’s stomach remedy has been sold since 1871 and formerly…