I always enjoy finding signs with old alpha-numeric phone exchanges. Some I find on other websites, others I discover on my own. Most of these signs would date from the early-to-mid-70s at the very latest, but in most cases are older than that.
I have not had much finding old signs like these on chain link fences. People who post them usually do not say where they are located. I did find one in Manhattan a few years ago. I was fortunate to find this one over the summer while walking through Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.
These Goldsmith Roofing signs used to be on buildings throughout Brooklyn and elsewhere in the city. They've been disappearing lately, but I was fortunate to find one still extant in Midwood.
Here's another fun find. I posted one of these last year from a building in Manhattan, proclaiming the building "adequately wired". Despite the Queens reference on the sign, this building was in Brooklyn (Sheepshead Bay, I think).
This scrap metal dealer in Coney Island has their ES.2-5348 number in the front . . .
. . . and side of the building. I had to take these photos quickly as I didn't want to get too close to the security guards with dogs.
Staubitz Market in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn, opened in 1917 and advertises itself as the oldest butcher shop in New York. The neon sign has the old MAIN 4-0014 number.
An interesting mixture of eras at this auto parts store in Bushwick. Alpha-numberic phone numbers were phased out in the early 1970s. However many New Yorkers stubbornly clung on to the old style even after it has officially gone. Apparently in this case, it persisted at least as late as 1984 when the 718 area code was introduced for New York City's outer boroughs.
I like the fully-written Whitehall extension on this tailor shop in Long Island City, Queens.
Just a few blocks away, this sign for an electrical contractor is missing lots of letters, but the old phone number is still visible, if faded.
While all of the photos above were in Brooklyn and Queens, here is one I found on Long Island. At Clay-Time Tennis in East Rockaway you can see signs with both the old and new-style phone numbers.
Given your interest in such things, I would have to think discovering them on your own is much more exciting than finding them on a website. And that's pretty neat about that market being open for over a hundred years. I wonder how many other places across the country could claim the same? I wouldn't think it would be very many.
ReplyDelete