A very faded building ad on Jamaica Avenue near 161st Street advertises the department store once billed as Jamaica’s largest. Simon, Louis and Moses Plaut opened their first department store…

A recent building teardown at 43rd Avenue and Hunter Street has revealed this decades-old wall ghost. The ST in the exchange stands for STillwell, STerling or STagg, I’m unsure which.…

For some time now there has been talk about whether this wall mural at West Broadway and Reade Street, which has been there since I began essaying FNY in 1998,…

The “Hot Bird” chicken franchise originated in the mid-1970s in Brooklyn, with three prominent, yet simply designed, painted ads scattered around western Brooklyn. The barb-b-que franchise clucked its last in…

The National Biscuit Company was formed in 1898 by a merger of the midwest American Bakeries and the eastern New York Biscuit Company, while these companies, in turn, had been…

This vertical painted sign on Vandam Street between Hudson and Varick in SoHo, just about washed out by the sun now, is the last vestige of Masback Hardware, which existed…

photo: Rachel Dahill-fuchel Came across this just recently, on Marcy Avenue and Madison Street across from the old Boys’ High in Bed-Stuy. Has an ancient ad recently been uncovered?   Sadly,…

Amazingly this faded sign on Hewes Street between Broadway and South 5th Streets is pretty much unchanged since I first surveyed it in 1999. Apparently it’s a palimpsest, or one…

Simonson Funeral Home , facing south on Lefferts Boulevard at Jamaica Avenue. Simonson has become part of Fox Funeral Home and now operates at Metropolitan and Ascan Avenues in Forest…

A pair of color-coordinated “fading ads” on West 38th between 10th and 11th Avenues for Sheldon International Storage and J. Roth Trucking. These were likely done by the same signpainter…

I was stumbling around the Columbus Circle area after completing the Hell’s Kitchen Forgotten NY tour on Sunday, May 18th, 2014, when I spotted some semi-familiar words on an 8th…

Aged Army-Navy store ad palimpsest, South Main near East 6th (Gallery Row near Hotel Rosslyn), Los Angeles, CA. LA also has a collection of retro-style twin lamps. 5/5/14