© Estate of Stuart Davis
© Estate of Stuart Davis
Forgotten NY’s Kevin Walsh in upcoming book Fading Ads of NYC
Frank Jump & Kevin Walsh @ Fading Ad Gallery in 2004
Might as Well jUmP! – Reflections on the Color Blue
In early July 1998, I was seated in my office at a well-known direct marketer on Long Island when someone—I forget who—left a New York Times article on my desk. I was enraptured as I read about a man who was just as fascinated by the fading remnants of a forgotten New York as I was and documented his discoveries on the worldwide web, as it was known in those days. His name was Frank Jump, and he ran, and still runs, a website dedicated to the “faded ads” that dot New York City’s landscapes.
The year 1998 was still the wild west days for what we now know as the Internet, but the web was beginning to assert itself as the Number One disseminator of information; where previously, amateur chroniclers had to finance and print up periodicals known as “zines” to get across their obsessions and desires, here was a golden opportunity for a cheap means of getting across what you wanted to say. The word “blog” hadn’t been invented yet, but thousands of mavens were beginning to poke their heads above the muck and make their thoughts known worldwide. Today, bloggers influence elections, elect players to all-Star games and influence the entertainment industry and everything else in every corner of life you can name, but in the late 1990s, it was mainly a hobbyists’ forum.
So it was this incredible Frank Jump photograph of Reckitt’s Blue that prompted me to sketch out on scrap paper what I wanted for Forgotten New York that memorable day in that direct marketing office. The circa 1890 ad for a laundry product manufactured by Reckitt’s known simply as “Blue” was hidden for many years behind a building on Washington Avenue and Dean Street in Brooklyn; when the building was torn down, lo and behold: there it was. Reckitt’s Blue happens to be my favorite shade of blue, by the way—and according to a Forgotten fan who wrote in to inform me, the color of the ad is: C-67.45 percent, M-34.9 percent, Y-7.84 percent, K-1.57 percent, taken from percentages from RGB monitor samples. The original color, considering the fade, may have been closer to C-74.51 percent, M-48.63 percent, Y-23.92 percent, K-10.59 percent.
In May 2005, author and friend Dawn Eden published an article for the Daily News about fading ads [pictured above] on which Jump and I collaborated.
– Might As Well Jump! – Kevin Walsh
CHECK OUT FORGOTTEN NYs NEW BLOGGY LOOK!
Bank of A. Levy, Inc. – Oxnard, CA
© Frank H. Jump
Residuals (?) Over Four Million Dollars © Frank H. Jump
© Google Books
Newspaper Archive
© Frank H. Jump
- Banco Buena Ventura – Banco BuenaVentura, a bank started last year in Oxnard with plans to serve the Latino community, is undergoing a voluntary liquidation and will close at the end of business Sept. 21.Read more: http://www.vcstar.com/news/2009/sep/03/no-headline—nxxfcbanco04/#ixzz1cgv1ZoNq
– vcstar.com
Newspaper Archive
Featured Fade – FIAT – Avenue de Choisy – 13º Arrondissement – Paris, FR – Kovel-Son
© Kovel-Son
- 13º Arrondissement of Paris – Wikipedia
- FIAT, an acronym for Fabbrica Italiana Automobili Torino – Wikipedia
Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-10-30
- Video: A Whiter Shade Of Pale – Procol Harum (by Meowbay) http://t.co/8AwwLZSu #
- Video: Procol Harum – Conquistador (by oddsnends09) http://t.co/HBXn9xf0 #
- Julian Assange Says WikiLeaks May Be Forced to Close – http://t.co/o7aaLD2g http://t.co/GmeXNK6k #
- @HistoryPressWst @FadingAd Thanks for the Shout Out! in reply to HistoryPressWst #
- @life_rant http://t.co/M16hMI08 Just Another Day on Earth – Brian Eno – timelapse forest video #
- @JoniQuotes Synchronized like magic… #
- BARNES & NOBLE | Fading Ads of New York City by Frank Jump | Hardcover http://t.co/HoKIYsoJ #
- BARNES & NOBLE | Fading Ads of New York City by Frank Jump | Hardcover http://t.co/rOYNqMMU via @addthis #
- You've bit my hand palms / Sucked blood from forehead / And now you are dead #mosquito #haiku #
- BOOK SIGNING for Fading Ads of New York City (History Press) / Frank H Jump – Barnes & Noble Books – 82nd &… http://t.co/YhbaswWl #
- Waiting for Occupy Flatbush to liven up this neighborhood. #OWS #FLATBUSH #
- Video: GOD MUST BE A BOOGIE MAN @ MINGUS – JONI MITCHELL (by ky5m) http://t.co/k44CheJ4 #
- Bonded slaves – Slavery: A 21st Century Evil – Al Jazeera English http://t.co/FKWyjA8D #
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Ambassador Hotel – The Tenderloin – San Francisco, CA
© Frank H. Jump
The Ambassador Hotel is a six-story, 134 room single room occupancy hotel at 55 Mason Street in the Tenderloin district of San Francisco,California. The hotel was designed by Earl B. Scott & K. McDonald as the Ferris Harriman Hotel and Theater, and completed in 1911. An addition was completed in 1922, and in 1923 the hotel was renamed Hotel Ambassador. In 1929 the theater was converted to a garage.
The building can be seen in the movie Metro, featuring Eddie Murphy. Science fiction and true crime author Miriam Allen deFord was a noted resident from 1936 until her death in 1975. From 1978 to 1996, the hotel was managed by Hank Wilson, a San Francisco LGBT activist, who made the hotel a model for harm reduction housing. – Wikipedia
