{"id":11178,"date":"2012-07-15T13:32:25","date_gmt":"2012-07-15T13:32:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/?p=11178"},"modified":"2012-07-15T14:14:27","modified_gmt":"2012-07-15T14:14:27","slug":"area-ghost-signs-tell-stories-of-the-past-by-lisa-odonnell-winston-salem-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/2012\/07\/15\/area-ghost-signs-tell-stories-of-the-past-by-lisa-odonnell-winston-salem-journal\/","title":{"rendered":"Area ghost signs tell stories of the past | By: Lisa O’Donnell | Winston-Salem Journal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Area<\/a>

CLICK FOR LARGER IMAGE – Credit: Lauren Carroll\/Journal<\/p><\/div>\n

They are the ghosts of businesses past, their once-bright messages, advertising 25-cent plate lunches or wedding cakes, faintly recognizable after decades of sun, rain and neglect.<\/p>\n

If photographs turn yellow with age, hand-painted advertisements simply fade away.<\/p>\n

Look closely and you can still spot some of these “ghost signs,” as they are often called, all over Forsyth County, particularly Liberty Street, once a hotbed of commerce.<\/p>\n

The signs are a window into a bygone era, when businesses lured customers into their store with paintings of a refreshing 7-Up on the side of their building rather than blasting emails promoting the latest LivingSocial deal.<\/p>\n

An acclaimed new book, “Fading Ads of New York City,” by photographer and urban archaeologist Frank Jump, has sparked a renewed interest in these signs, resulting in stories in several national newspapers and a popular website, www.fadingad.com.<\/p>\n

Though Jump said his eyes had washed over plenty of old advertising murals, he never really paid attention to them until he saw a giant Omega Oil sign in Harlem while taking a class on the history of New York City in 1997.<\/p>\n

“Once you’re made aware of them, you begin to see them everywhere,” Jump said from his home in Brooklyn, N.Y.<\/p>\n

The success of his book and blog speaks of a desire among people to better understand their city’s history, he said.<\/p>\n

“I think these signs provide, not really nostalgia, but a reminder that there is a past and there is a history that should not fade,” he said. “Sometimes, it’s not about the product or the sign painter but it’s about a history of a neighborhood. Some of these products were for people who moved to the suburbs, which indicates demographic shifts and white flight. Once there was a neighborhood that thrived and now, there is nothing left behind.”<\/p>\n

Closer to Winston-Salem, Salisbury has begun restoring some of the ghost signs in its downtown.<\/p>\n

Behind every ghost sign is a story. Here are a few of them:\u00a0Drink Pepsi-Cola<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

They are the ghosts of businesses past, their once-bright messages, advertising 25-cent plate lunches or wedding cakes, faintly recognizable after decades of sun, rain and neglect. If photographs turn yellow with age, hand-painted advertisements simply fade away. Look closely and you can still spot some of these “ghost signs,” as they are often called, all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[643,1177,2118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ghost-signs-ghost-ads-other-phantoms","category-pepsi-cola","category-winston-salem-nc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pXBbJ-2Ui","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11178\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fadingad.com\/fadingadblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}