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Telegraph
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Telegraph
New York's iconic neon signs are disappearing – these are the ones to see before it's too late
When I walk through the East Village after dark, down 2 nd Avenue to the corner of East 6 th Street, my heart swells. The red neon sign that spells out 'BLOCK DRUG STORES' on the Avenue, continuing with 'DRUGS COSMETICS' around the corner, has been there since the mid 1940s. It includes the detail of when the shop opened: 1885, the same year that parts of the Statue of Liberty sailed into the harbour of New York City, ready for assembly. That sign – as grubby as it is glam – feels like a reliable friend in the neighbourhood. We all bitch about gentrification and inflation, but on this corner of town, time stands still. It's seen it all. Take a picture if you visit that corner – it won't last forever. Many of my favourite masterpieces of typography are gone. The effervescent 1960s cursive of the Ziegfeld Theatre sign between Central Park and Times Square was kept for posterity when the cinema was repurposed as a ballroom in 2017 (141 W 54th St), but that wasn't the case with the frisky deco Subway Inn sign which glowed opposite Bloomingdales for eight decades. Forged in the 1930s, it was a glorious beacon for daytime drinking in one of the dive's perpetually midnight pleather booths. And what is New York for, if not a 2pm martini? The bar relocated twice after its eviction in 2014 but went the way of all flesh last December. The iconic sign has now been mothballed by its owners, while the site it originally occupied was demolished and remains vacant, overgrown with weeds. Landmark signs sometimes get a new lease of life. The Long Island City Pepsi-Cola sign was first created in 1940 for the top of the company's bottling factory. Its 1993 remake is now permanent and protected at Gantry Plaza State Park, beaming out across the East River. Less than a dozen blocks away, in Astoria, is Silvercup Studios ( 42-22 22 nd Street), where Succession, The Sopranos and 30 Rock were filmed (sadly you can't visit the sets). The marquee branding on the scaffolding out front is pure vintage cinema, recycling letters from the old bread factory sign that was here in the 1950s. Twenty minutes by cab south, beside the Williamsburg Bridge, you'll find the brilliantly 1960s-style Domino Sugar sign which was recreated perfectly in 2022 when the old factory was turned into offices. Lucky, but less showy architectural salvage now gets a good home. The New York Sign Museum was established near Broadway Junction in Brooklyn in 2019 by a group of archivists and artists. For my money, it's more fun than a trip to the Met or Guggenheim, with a spooky Scooby Doo atmosphere of abandoned objects and the places they were once attached to. There are guided tours (from $28.52) of the collection on semi regular Fridays and Sundays, taking you through two floors of hand painted and steel artefacts, including signs for pianos, furs, goat meat and Jesus. One of the signs at the Museum that resonates most with me is for Essex Cards, my local stationary shop for years, and a focal point of Avenue A life since the 1920s. The shonky lettering on the façade belongs to the streets of a 1970s Cassavetes or Scorsese movie. The shop was gutted by fire in 2022, but rose Phoenix-like thanks to a community GoFundMe. It's shiny and new, inside and out. While you must go to the Museum to see that old sign, the stretch of the East Village on which the shop still sits is a key artery for a self-guided walking tour of downtown Manhattan graphic design history. I'd suggest you start with a tuna melt and a milk shake in the throwback 'Formica diner' that is Joe Junior (167 3 rd Avenue). Its gleefully naive signage of a cartoon burger and a character licking their lips has been there for over 50 years. From Gramercy, head south and meander, making sure you take in the 1950s amusement arcade-style display outside Gringer & Sons Appliances (29 1 st Avenue). Although I'm no fan of the food or omnipresent queue at Katz's Deli (205 E Houston S), I hope the brick-brown 1940s signage along its side on Ludlow Street, offering 'wurst fabric' (Yiddish for sausage maker), outlives us all. When former owner Harry Tarowsky was asked by the signwriter what he wanted on one of the panels he replied 'Katz's Deli. That's all'. So, that's all it reads. Go to see the yellow and red 1910 sign of Yonah Shimmel Knish Bakery nearby, then head into the Lower East Side to buy sacks of gummy sweets at Economy Candy (107 Rivington Street), here since 1937, and to Beauty & Essex (146 Essex Street), where the current restaurant's name has been attached on to the still-visible sign for the building's previous tenants, M. Katz's Fine Furniture. The ghost signs of the city are treasures: When absurdly spendy restaurant Carbone opened in the West Village in 2013, it attached its neon to the gorgeous old hanging sign for Rocco Restaurant, which had been there for 90 years. Also fabulous: the fancy Aesop store on the Upper West Side (219 Columbus Avenue), which hasn't changed anything about the sign for Anel French Cleaners which was here before it. Head further down the Lower East Side, to 130 Orchard Street, to see the 1920s paint-on-brick lettering that covers two storeys of what was the fabric and interiors company S. Beckenstein, currently the Perrotin Art Gallery. The adjacent Tenement Museum offers brilliant tours of this historic neighbourhood and should be your penultimate stop before ending the day with a cocktail. There's no shortage of gaudily emblazoned dive bars here, but I favour 169 Bar (169 East Broadway). The vibe inside is kitsch and cosy, and the retro martini glass on the sign outside is a work of art. They also serve dumplings. What more could you want? While the best of old New York is being erased by chain stores and impossible rents, the signs are still there to enjoy. Lots of businesses, including Katz's, and the ancient gay bar Julius' (159 West 10 th Street) in the West Village, have turned their signage into a revenue stream in the form of T-shirts and other merch. Those graphics are the familiar backdrop to so much pop culture from yesteryear. The reason they're so beautiful is that they never looked new to begin with, so they'll never get old. Until, of course, they're gone. Essentials The Hotel Chelsea (rooms from £369) refreshed its iconic marquee and neon signage when it was turned from a notorious bohemian dive into a luxury hotel three years ago. You already know that Sid killed Nancy here, and that Dylan Thomas, Patti Smith and Warhol were all regulars, but you may not know the previous 'CHELSEA' part of the neon sign sold at auction for $46,000 (£33,800) last year (each of the letters of 'HOTEL' went for just over $3,000 each). The rooms are plush, and the bar is genteel and refined, but predictably full of fashionistas.
New York Times
07-02-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
When a Bar Closes, Who Gets the Neon Sign?
Good morning. It's Friday. Today we'll look at a fight over a once familiar neon sign on the Upper East Side. We'll also get details on a federal investigation involving Shen Yun Performing Arts, the touring dance group run by the Falun Gong religious movement. This is about a bar fight, but not one that involves drunk customers throwing boilermakers — or haymakers — at each other. At issue is a distinctive neon sign that used to frame a dive bar on the Upper East Side, a place where the playwright Wendy Wasserstein said 'it makes a lot of sense not to order wine.' The sign spelled the name of the Subway Inn in red letters — and followed the bar, as it moved from one storefront to another, and another. Then, last month, the sign disappeared — taken, by all accounts, by the new tenant in the storefront that the Subway Inn vacated in December. The new tenant said that the sign belonged to him because the Subway Inn had not removed it. Steve Salinas, whose family operated the Subway Inn for more than 15 years, disputed that claim and went to the police. The Subway Inn was one of those places that drew everyone from doormen and construction workers to businesspeople and tired shoppers needing pick-me-ups. At 143 East 60th Street, the home of the Subway Inn for 70 years, one entrance to the 59th Street subway station was steps from the door, and Bloomingdale's was right across the street. When the bar opened in the 1930s, the Third Avenue El clattered at the other end of the block. The writer Robert Simonson called the Subway Inn 'an endearing dump of a saloon' that had become 'something of a cultural rebuke' to its surroundings. Wasserstein, who died in 2006, said that the bar's ambience came from customers 'who look like they're something out of Eugene O'Neill's 'The Iceman Cometh.'' The original owner, Charlie Ackerman, was in his 90s when he died in 2007. Marcello Salinas, who had started as a porter, became the owner, and he left the bar to his wife, Patricia, and their son Steve when he died in 2016. By then, the Subway Inn had relocated to 60th Street and Second Avenue, next to the Queensboro Bridge. In 2022, after the landlord moved to demolish the building, the Subway Inn moved a few doors up Second Avenue, to No. 1154. But 'things have never quite been the same,' the Salinases said when they announced that they were closing the bar in December. 'The excitement and momentum that we had anticipated just never materialized,' they wrote. 'It became apparent that the landscape had changed irreversibly.' 'We've seen a shift in the way people live, work and spend their time,' they wrote. 'The rhythms of the city that once sustained places like Subway Inn no longer feel the same. The vibrant nightlife and bustling atmosphere we relied on have gradually given way to quieter, more introspective times.' The result, they wrote, was that 'our ability to keep up with operational costs and overheads became unsustainable.' Steve Salinas said that the landlord had found a new tenant — Gerry Doyle, who runs Kelly's, a sports bar on the Lower East Side. Salinas said that the deal had called for him to leave behind the restaurant equipment. But he said that the deal did not cover the sign, so he had made arrangements to have it removed and stored. He said that the person who had maintained it for him could not tackle the job until after Jan. 1. Salinas said he had figured that would be fine: Doyle had not obtained a liquor license and could not open without one. When the man who had looked after the sign for Salinas arrived at the bar, there was no sign to remove. Salinas said he had telephoned the building superintendent, who told him, 'Gerry took it down,' referring to Doyle. Salinas then called Doyle, who maintained that the sign now belonged to him. 'He hadn't taken it down,' Doyle said on Wednesday. 'He has no legal right to it. He's trying to say it's his. It's not. When you leave stuff behind, you give up ownership of it.' 'I can't open my business with somebody else's sign above,' he said. Salinas said he had filed a police report saying the sign was removed without permission. The police confirmed that the report had been filed and said that the matter was under investigation. Doyle said that the sign was in Brooklyn and that he had paid $5,000 to have it taken away. 'It's out of my hands,' he said. Expect sunny skies and moderate wind with a high around 40 degrees. The evening will be partly cloudy with temperatures dropping to around 27 degrees. In effect until Feb. 12 (Lincoln's Birthday). The latest Metro news Shen Yun is said to be under federal investigation over possible visa fraud Shen Yun Performing Arts, the touring dance group run by the Falun Gong religious movement, is under federal investigation for possible visa fraud, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Agents conducting the investigation have also sought information about Shen Yun's financial and labor practices, including whether performers were directed to smuggle cash into the United States when returning from tours overseas, according to people with knowledge of the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an ongoing investigation. My colleagues Michael Rothfeld and Nicole Hong write that the full scope of the inquiry is not clear, and it may not result in any charges. The investigation is being overseen by the Department of Homeland Security and the State Department, as well as by federal prosecutors in Manhattan. But the investigation is taking place during a period of intense scrutiny for Shen Yun. Last year, a New York Times investigation revealed that the group paid its young performers little or nothing to work long hours and keep grueling schedules. Ying Chen, a representative of Shen Yun, said that the group had yet to hear from federal authorities but would 'cooperate fully' if contacted. Spokespeople for the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department and the U.S. attorney's office in Manhattan all declined to comment. The inquiry, which has been in progress since at least 2023, has also focused in part on whether Shen Yun's leaders arranged romantic relationships for the group's performers, according to people with knowledge of the matter. The Times reported in August that Shen Yun's leaders have tried to set up foreign students with American citizens in relationships that some former performers believed were for visa purposes. Male and female performers in Shen Yun were not supposed to speak to one another unless necessary for work, and dating required permission from Shen Yun's leaders, according to interviews with former performers. Chen, in her statement, wrote that 'all marriages within our community are genuine.' Good Sign Dear Diary: My son had just turned 16 and was eager to get his learner's permit. So after school one day, we headed to the Department of Motor Vehicles office in Coney Island. My son filled out and submitted the paperwork just before the last exam of the day was announced. A clerk called his name. 'But I haven't looked at the manual yet,' my son said. The clerk looked at him and then at his paperwork. 'Come on,' he said. 'You're a Capricorn. You know everything.' — Susan Hulkower Illustrated by Agnes Lee. Send submissions here and read more Metropolitan Diary here. Glad we could get together here. See you tomorrow. — J.B. P.S. Here's today's Mini Crossword and Spelling Bee. You can find all our puzzles here. Natasha Cornelissen and Ed Shanahan contributed to New York Today. You can reach the team at nytoday@ Sign up here to get this newsletter in your inbox.
