© Frank H. Jump
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2012-01-29
- In a City Fighting Blight, ‘Ghost Signs’ as Portals to a Bygone Era
By DAN BARRY – http://t.co/o7aaLD2g http://t.co/Mo63Oj4G # - Fading Ads of New York City – NYC ARTS: http://t.co/1te2HHey @QHS Jan 26 @ 6:30PM #
- SLIDESHOW: Old ads, fresh perspective, with Frank Jump http://t.co/pr7QoNdZ #
- @nickhirshon Steinway Street off the BQE coming away from the Triboro? in reply to nickhirshon #
- @nickhirshon Cool. I'm hm in reply to nickhirshon #
- COME SEE ME IN QUEENS TONIGHT!
http://t.co/koYRvRHd http://t.co/DltnHgzZ # - @indigosherbet Fading Ads of NYC’s Frank Jump @ Queens Historical Society – January 26, 6:30PM – Fading Ad Blog http://t.co/acUtJmZt #
- TONIGHT!! Fading Ads of NYC’s Frank Jump @ Queens Historical Society – January 26, 6:30PM – Fading Ad Blog http://t.co/acUtJmZt #
- @RolandoPujol TONITE! Fading Ads of NYC’s Frank Jump @ Queens Historical Society – January 26, 6:30PM – Fading Ad Blog http://t.co/acUtJmZt #
- @tweentingurl How does he like his new school? in reply to tweentingurl #
- @NYMag TONIGHT! Fading Ads of NYC’s Frank Jump @ Queens Historical Society – January 26, 6:30PM – Fading Ad Blog http://t.co/acUtJmZt #
- @DanAmira TONIGHT! Fading Ads of NYC’s Frank Jump @ Queens Historical Society – January 26, 6:30PM – Fading Ad Blog http://t.co/acUtJmZt #
- Fence-Hopping Blogger Chronicles Fading 'Ghost Signs' Across New York City – http://t.co/BlO3OM3p: http://t.co/bQCLlmnu via @AddThis #
- Anti-gay OK lawmaker wants to reinstitute #DADT on state Natl Guard. Act now with @HRC: https://t.co/0bkSgEuR #LGBT #
- Fence-Hopping Blogger Chronicles Fading 'Ghost Signs' Across New York City – http://t.co/BlO3OM3p http://t.co/KsgZBC9b via @addthis #
- @jensrealia @BonnywoodManor @MenopslStoners @Jennyablue @lisagolden @lemmycaution25 @kwarnockny @kayemdub @susantiner @UTSavage RainyDays&Ms in reply to jensrealia #
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Featured Fade – Eagle Electric – LIC, NY – Pamela Talese
Eagle Electric - Day - Collection of the New York Historical Society. © Pamela Talese
About Eagle Electric
Eagle Electric Manufacturing Company, a maker of electrical devices, switches and circuit units, was founded in 1920 and based in Long Island City, Queens. The giant, illuminated billboard for Eagle Electric, a triumph of design and the combined efforts of sheet-metal workers, light- designers, and sign painters, overlooked the Queensborough Bridge and boldly stated in neon: “PERFECTION IS NOT AN ACCIDENT.” Above this claim, deftly depicted, were three of the over 2000 electrical products manufactured in Eagle’s many buildings between 21st Street and Jackson Avenue.
My first encounter with the sign was in 1989 and completely by accident. I was on my way to interview for a position at the New York Times Magazine. I had worked there as a copy girl years before, and was familiar with the IRT subway having taken it to Times Square every weekday for two consecutive summers. This time, however, I mistakenly took the train in the opposite direction. After seven minutes underground, I was greeted by daylight and the glittering neon sign for Eagle Electric Company featuring a noble looking eagle, beak in profile, wings flared, and the famous motto on perfection. When I arrived thirty minutes late to the interview and told my story about the sign, the editor asked me if I really wanted to stop painting and work for the Times magazine. I don’t remember how I answered but I wasn’t offered the job.
Four years later I was living in Long Island City. During another period of full-time work, this time as an interior designer in Manhattan, there were late nights when I took a taxi home over the Queensborough Bridge. What made the ride worth the fare was to see which of the letters in Eagle Electric’s slogan were functioning. Sometimes it was PERF____ON IS NOT AN ACC_____, or ____ECTION IS ___ __ACCID___, or other variations. Perfection was elusive, but nevertheless occurred on nights when all the lights were working in full neon blaze.
By the late 1920’s, with increased automobile ownership and commuter rail transit, billboard advertising expanded as well. Eagle Electric shared space along the elevated tracks with other area manufacturers. A few stops east, the Swingline Staple factory (temporary site of MoMA QNS) displayed an enormous neon stapler for “Swingline Easy Loading Staples.” Near the Long Island Rail Road, the banner-size lettering of the Adams/Chiclets Chewing Gum Factory floated above the roofline of the factory’s elegant art deco building. Today, along with the famous Pepsi Cola sign, the only remaining example of grand signage in the Hunters Point area is Silvercup Studios, once a baker of bread.
I painted the first version of Eagle Electric (Day) almost entirely on site during several consecutive afternoons in the summer of 2000, a few months after leaving my job to paint full time. (Refinements were done off-site a bit later, which is why this painting, now in the collection of the New York Historical Society, is dated 2001.) I also wanted to do a Night version of the illuminated sign, and as with the Day version, I stood on the pedestrian path on the south side of the Queensborough Bridge (now a roadway for cars). I was able to paint there without much trouble during the day, but as night fell, this became increasingly difficult. Cyclists zooming down the ramp were surprised to see me despite the many blinking lights attached to my backpack. Also, now a cyclist myself, I realized that taking up one side of the path was dangerous. After two evenings of painting and lots of swearing, I was so rattled by both bicycle traffic and some of the people on the bridge that I quit and finished the painting in my studio using Eagle Electric (Day), my drawings and my memory of what it looked like at night as a guide. I tried to remember the look of the red cars of the number 7 train, which ran in both directions on the elevated track, always screeching at the curve.
That September, the Eagle Electric sign went dark. I watched for its illumination but it did not come. My journal entry dated October 28, 2000 reads: “It’s gone. I could tell it was gone even though I couldn’t see out the window of the crowded subway car last night. This morning when I went out to look, all that remained was the steal armature that held Eagle Electric aloft.”
What strikes me about difference between the billboard advertisements of Eagle era and those of today, is not only the loss of the ‘hand painted sign’ but the change in the products themselves and their target market. In neighborhoods where light industry once thrived, these well-crafted and exuberant signs reflected local pride in the manufacture of solid, useful products. Such products were often purchased by the same community that made them: the working middle class. The situation is very different today.
Outdoor advertising (predominantly printed vinyl or printed paper) mostly focus on luxury goods and services, or emerging ‘brands’ predominantly made abroad. The impact of globalization goes far beyond this aspect of advertising, but to my thinking, it is a pity that signage from the middle 20th Century was not preserved in some way. – Pamela Talese – info@pamelatalese.com
Eagle Electric - Night - Collection of Ellen Abrams and Kevin Baker © Pamela Talese
Fence-Hopping Blogger Chronicles Fading ‘Ghost Signs’ Across New York City
January 26, 2012 1:24pm | By Nick Hirshon, DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
Teacher Frank Jump, who profiles “ghost signs” on his blog, will sign copies of his new book on Thursday night at the Queens Historical Society in Flushing. (Frank Jump)
FLUSHING — Frank Jump has hopped fences, begged his way into strangers’ apartments and even trespassed in pursuit of his art.
Jump, who teaches technology to second – fifth graders at Public School 119 in Brooklyn, has long photographed fading ads on brick buildings across the city, known to aficionados as “ghost signs.” His exploits, chronicled on his blog and recently compiled into a book, have led him to restricted areas and garnered weird looks, but his drive to document an overlooked element of Big Apple art has always guided him through.
“I never really worry, I never think,” Jump said. “I really felt like I was some guerrilla tactic photographer where I had to do these things stealth. Get in, get out.”
Jump will present a 120-image presentation of his fading ad photos Thursday at 6:30 p.m. at the Queens Historical Society, taking visitors on a virtual tour of the fleeting historic treasures across New York City.
Snapping the images is something of a cathartic process for Jump, who began photographing the ads when he was 26 years old, after being diagnosed with HIV. Now 51 and healthy, Jump still feels a lasting connection to the signs that he felt drawn to initially because he thought that they were, like him, fading away.
The lecture will mark a sort of homecoming for Jump, who lives in Flatbush but has deep Queens roots. He was born in Far Rockaway and grew up in Belle Harbor, Laurelton and Howard Beach.
Jump said he gets requests to tag along on his adventures from the unlikeliest of places.
In the summer of 1997, Jump was at a family function when he noticed that his husband’s niece, who was visiting from Italy, seemed bored.
Jump said she asked to go with him as he tracked down the ghost signs in the adventurous fashion she had heard so much about.
He took her to Jamaica Avenue in Woodhaven, an area he suspected had ghost signs but had never fully inspected. Sure enough, he spotted what appeared to be a fading ad beyond a plywood fence of a construction site. The fence was padlocked, but he smashed the wood and entered, and found an ad for a local business named M. Rappoport’s Music Store that was revealed after an adjacent building had been knocked down.
“It just seemed like I was being filmed, like it was a reality TV show,” he said, adding that the adventure was so smooth, his husband’s niece thought it was a setup.
Marisa Berman, the historical society’s executive director, said she has already fielded numerous phone calls inquiring about Jump’s lecture. She said the fading ads appeal to people in almost every neighborhood since they pass them so often.
“It’s something you may have noticed but not something you would have absorbed,” she said.
Jump said that while many New Yorkers don’t appreciate the ads, they would miss them if they were painted over or destroyed.
“If it was missing from the landscape, it’d be like going to the Grand Canyon and it’s filled in,” Jump said.
The Coleman Lamp & Stove Company Limited – Queen Street East – Toronto, CA
© Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
© Frank H. Jump
- In 1900, W.C. Coleman establishes a lighting service in Kingfisher, Oklahoma, known as the Hydro-Carbon Light Company. Having purchased a large amount of inventory, Mr. Coleman finds he is unable to sell the product (due to a poor product sold in the area prior to his arrival), so instead he sells a light service. Customers love the idea and Mr. Coleman is soon servicing areas as far West as San Diego.
- 1912 – W.C. Coleman continues to enjoy success with his lamps and changes the company name to the Coleman Lamp Company.
- Coleman opens up a plant in Toronto, Canada. Sheldon Coleman, the founder’s son, enters the family business, joining the Toronto plant in 1925. – Coleman Timeline – Coleman Company Website
New York City is eternally evolving. From its… – WORD – March 18th – Walking tour & book-signing
New York City is eternally evolving. From its iconic skyline to its side alleys, the new is perpetually being built on the debris of the past. But a movement to preserve the city’s vanishing landscapes has emerged. For nearly 20 years, Frank Jump has been documenting the fading ads that are visible, but less often seen, all over New York. Disappearing from the sides of buildings or hidden by new construction, these signs are remnants of lost eras of New York’s life. They weave together the city’s unique history, culture, environment and society and tell the stories of the businesses, places and people whose lives transpired among them – the story of New York itself. Fading Ads is also a study of time and space, of mortality and living, as Jump’s campaign to capture the ads mirrors his own struggle with HIV. Experience the ads—shot with vintage Kodachrome film—and the meaning they carry through acclaimed photographer and urban documentarian Frank Jump’s lens.
In Highland Park, Mich., ‘Ghost Signs’ of a Brighter Era – NYTimes.com – Dan Barry
A faded ad from the early days of Highland Park, Mich., once a city in ascent. The mural was revealed when an adjacent building was demolished. By DAN BARRY © Dan Barry
What is it about old advertisements, sometimes called “ghost signs,” that so intrigues us? After all, they are nothing more than expired expressions of commercialism, conveying little care for art or posterity. Yet our scanning gaze will almost always get lost in their echoing calls for attention. Why?
Perhaps we see them as faded invitations to another time, asking us to imagine the everyday rhythms of life when their fresh-paint message first shouted from a brick facade. We study the typeface rarely used today, the phrasing of language that rings odd to the modern ear and, most of all, the names of companies and products once so vital and now no more.
“It’s a reminder of our own timeline and how quickly things become obsolete,” said Frank Jump, a photographer and the author of “Fading Ads of New York City,” (The History Press, 2011). “One minute people had thriving businesses building buggies, and the next minute Henry Ford is pushing out automobiles on an assembly line and nobody wants horse and buggies anymore.” – Dan Barry – READ MORE
- In Highland Park, Mich., ‘Ghost Signs’ of a Brighter Era – NYTimes.com.
- New York Times writes about Highland Park ‘ghost murals’ a year after Detroit blogger -MLive. com – Ridiculous & bitter commentary.
Fading Ads of NYC’s Frank Jump @ Queens Historical Society – January 26, 6:30PM
Fading Ads of New York City
PEARL GABEL FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS Author Frank Jump in front of one of the “ghost signs” on Archer Ave. in Jamaica, Queens that he writes about in his new book, “Fading Ads of New York City.”
Queens Historical Society
143-35 37th Avenue
(between Bowne Street and Parsons Boulevard)
Flushing, NY 11354
Tel: (718) 939-0647
Visit Web Site
Map
$5.00 members, $8.00 general.
Dates & Hours
Thurs, Jan 26, 2012, 6:30 pm – 8 pm
[portfolio_slideshow]
Join author and photographer Frank Jump for a look at his new book Fading Ads of New York City. For nearly 20 years, Frank Jump has been documenting the fading ads that are visible, but less often seen all over New York. Disappearing from the sides of buildings or hidden by new construction, these signs are remnants of lost eras of New York’s life.
This photo-documentary is also a study of time and space, of mortality and living, as Mr. Jump’s campaign to capture the ads mirrors his own struggle with HIV. Mr. Jump will be focusing on the ads from departed industries in Queens, many from southern Queens. Fading Ads of New York City will be available for purchase and Mr. Jump will be signing copies of his book following the lecture.
- Directions: By subway: #7 train to the last stop, Main Street, Flushing. Walk two blocks east on Roosevelt Avenue to Bowne Street. Turn left, continue walking until Margaret Carman Green Park. Walk through the park. QHS is the first house on the left hand side.By bus: Q13 or Q28 to Parsons & Northern Blvds. Q12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 26, 27, 28, 44, 48, 65, 66, to Main Street, Flushing and follow the above subway directions.By car: Take the Long Island Expressway from the Queens Midtown Tunnel to the Van Wyck Expressway. Get on the Van Wyck going north. Exit the Van Wyck at the Northern Blvd. East exit. Travel along Northern Blvd. past Main Street for three traffic lights until Parsons Blvd. Turn right on Parsons Blvd. Make a right on 37th Avenue. The Kingsland Homestead is at the right at the end of the cul-de-sac.
About this Organization
Queens Historical Society
Headquartered in the historic house known as Kingsland Homestead, the Queens Historical Society explores the history of the borough from its aboriginal roots up to the present day.
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