West 53rd and Ninth Avenue © Jordan Jacobs
Ghost signs, ghost ads & other phantoms
Bickford’s Under The Visitor Center
From Fading Ads of NYC (History Press, 2011) © Frank H. Jump
Cooped Up? Cropped – Bickford’s (April 1997) © Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
Cooped up? Feeling low? Enjoy A Movie Today. 42nd Street. The World’s Greatest Movie Center.
And underneath you can see “Bickford’s.”
Little nifties from the fifties,
Innocent and sweet.
Sexy ladies from the eighties,
Who are indiscrete oh!
—Al Dubin, “42nd Street”The former Selwyn Office Building was scheduled to be demolished in the spring of 1998. It was being used as a visitors’ center until it suddenly collapsed on December 30, 1997. – Fading Ads of NYC, 2011
On the storefront before this fading ad is a Bickford’s sign. The shot of this fading ad was taken just a few months before the building (which served as the Times Square Visitors Center) collapsed from a water leak that December.
Fading Ad Campaign: The Chrome Age – and the future of the Fading Ad Blog
prototype book cover prior to 2011 History Press publication © Frank H. Jump
This was the first design I worked on before getting the publishing deal with the History Press, now bought by Arcadia Press. For the first nine years of the Fading Ad Blog, I posted obsessively daily and enjoyed a large following of over 500 visitors a day. The past year has been a rough one personally and I have posted more sporadically. I am also contemplating the future of blogging in general.
As this year draws to an end, I am self-reflective and open to suggestions from my audience and collaborators. The social media explosion has certainly impacted blogging and I have enjoyed my forays into Instagram and Twitter. But where do we go from here in an era of uncertainty where the Internet is about to undergo an overhaul by service providers with the end of Net Neutrality. So please feel free to express your opinions about the future of blogging, this blog and how you would like to see this project transform in the coming year. Thank you for all of your support and contributions from all of my guest featured contributors and followers. Happy New Year and keep looking up!
Sincerely yours,
Frank H. Jump
Bob Pins Posting – Ten Years Ago on the Fading Ad Blog
March 1997 Fading Ads of NYC (History Press, 2011) © Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
Bob Pins Fresco has held up pretty good in the last ten years (twenty). Luck of a northern exposure.
Neumann Leathers – Hoboken, NJ – Estelle Saltiel
© Estelle Saltiel
© Estelle Saltiel
The old Neumann Leathers factory will be preserved and rehabilitated, creating a mix-used site that includes residential and retail components and new public space, according to Hoboken’s new draft plan for the historic site released Monday.
– By Laura Herzog – NJ.com – October 20, 2015
