Vintage store signs: faded and falling apart

Some of the letters in this Gertel’s sign don’t look like they light up, yet that’s okay. Seeing the words “bakery” and “luncheon” one on top of the other in that old-time font more than makes up for it.

Luncheon: This old-school word is disappearing fast from the New York vocabulary.

Gertel’s home had been Hester Street since 1914. They relocated near Myrtle Avenue in Clinton Hill in 2008, taking the iconic sign with them.

I have no idea how long G&M Variety Discounts House has been on Broadway in Washington Heights. But judging from the shape of the sign, I’d say since the 1960s.

Girl gangsters of 19th century Manhattan

When you think of the criminal gangs of New York in the 1800s, ruthless young men probably come to mind.

But these gangs had female members as well, some of whom were notorious fighters.

There was Hell-Cat Maggie, a member of the Irish-American Dead Rabbits in the 1850s. Her home base was the Five Points slum, near today’s City Hall. Supposedly her teeth were filed into sharp points and she clawed rivals with brass fingernails.

Another was Sadie Farrell, aka Sadie the Goat. Reportedly she robbed East Siders by first head-butting them in the stomach. In the 1860s she joined the Charlton Street Gang, river pirates on the West Side.

Ida Burger, called Ida the Goose, was a prostitute and Lady Gopher, part of the Gophers of Hell’s Kitchen. In the 1910s she was lured away to the Lower East Side’s Eastman Gang, led by Monk Eastman, but eventually went back to the Gophers after a bloody shootout.

The illustration above, from the New York Public Library, depicts tough chicks rumming it up at a Five Points tavern in the 1870s.

Lower East Side loft! $1150/month!

The rent for these big duplex lofts (Spiral staircase! Full kitchen!) sounds pretty cheap today.

But in July 1984, when this ad ran in the East Village Eye, wouldn’t $1150 and $1300 a month be kind of on the pricey side?

I wonder what the location was and if these apartments still exist—or if they’ve been boutique-hotelized.

A snapshot of tenement life

An unknown photographer captured this New York mother and her two babies in an old-law tenement apartment in 1916. 

Like most flats in old-law tenements (so named because they predate “new” turn-of-the-century laws mandating better living conditions per apartment), it’s dark, squalid, and unventilated.

That window probably looks out onto a narrow courtyard, if not just another room in the same apartment.

Turn of the century Cooper Square

A web of elevated train tracks is flanked by sloped-roof buildings on the right and lovely Cooper Union—described in this postcard as “the Cooper Institute”—on the left.

Looks like some really sweet buildings have long since disappeared.

The horse heads left behind on old stables

Regal horse head statues like these still dot old buildings in every borough in the city, and it’s kind of a thrill to be out on a walk and discover new ones right in your own neighborhood.

They’re stately reminders that New York City was built on the backs of horses. Almost every block had stables where working horses were fed and allowed to rest.

This one above is affixed to an old stable on a side street in Clinton Hill.

An entirely different horse head watches over a building off Madison Street on the Lower East Side.

The sweetest store sign in Manhattan

Economy Candy, on Rivington Street, has such a nice old-timey sign. It’s a neat place to poke around and stock up on old-school treats as well. 

The neighborhood candy store is fast becoming extinct in New York City, going the way of the independent drugstore and the superette. Let’s hope Economy stays put.

Hunger and hopelessness on the Bowery

If New York had to nominate one street as its most rock-bottom skid row ever, it would probably have to be the Bowery. Not the Bowery of 2009, of course, with its influx of luxe hotels and boutiques.

I’m thinking of the Bowery of 1909, where down-on-their-luck men stood on bread lines and passed time in 15-cent hotel rooms, as these Library of Congress photos show.

If a man found himself on the Bowery, that was pretty much it for him. He’d sunk as low as you could go, and things weren’t going to get better.

Theodore Dreiser understood this when he wrote Sister Carrie. It’s an underrated turn-of-the-century New York novel chronicling the rise of a young, ambitious actress (kind of a Carrie Bradshaw of the 1890s) juxtaposed with the fall of her older common-law husband. 

Sister Carrie ends with the husband, the unemployed, weakened, and abandoned Hurstwood, committing suicide in a Bowery flophouse:

“Hurstwood laid down his fifteen cents and crept of with weary steps to his allotted room. It was a dingy affair—wooden, dusty, hard. A small gas-jet furnished sufficient light for so rueful a corner.

“‘Hm!’ He said, clearing his throat and locking the door.

“Now he began leisurely to take off his clothes, but stopped first with his coat, and tucked it along the crack under the door. His vest he arranged in the same place. His old wet, cracked hat he laid softly upon the table. Then he pulled off his shoes and laid down.

“It seemed as if he thought for a while, for now he arose and turned the gas out, standing calmly in the blackness, hidden from view. After a few moments, in which he reviewed nothing, but merely hesitated, he turned the gas on again, but applied no match. Even then he stood there, hidden wholly in that kindness which is night, while the uprising fumes filled the room. When the odour reached his nostrils, he quit his attitude and fumbled for the bed.

“‘What’s the use?’ he said, weakly, as he stretched himself to rest.”

New York City’s little cigarette rollers

In turn-of-the-century New York City, even young kids did their share to help the family finances. If a poor immigrant family worked a trade at home, small hands were there to assist. 

Above, photographer Lewis Wicks Hine captures an immigrant widow and her son rolling cigarettes in 1909. I love his brother in the dirty garment, his ears rather Spock-like, staring with suspicion at the camera.

The picture comes from Historic Photos of New York State, a just-published collection with lots of wonderful shots of city life over the years.

Jacob Riis also photographed an immigrant family from Eastern Europe plying their trade, cigar rolling. The undated photo above is part of the Jacob A. Riis Collection at the Museum of the City of New York.

I imagine these families were replaced by machines not long after the photos were taken.

Cross streets carved into tenement corners

Before reliable metal street signs were put up on every corner of the city letting you know exactly where you were, it was probably pretty helpful to have the cross street names chiseled into the corner of a tenement or warehouse.

Now, of course, the cross street carvings have outlived their usefulness. They’re worn down by the elements, but it’s always a treat to look up and see one.

Like this sign on Market and Madison Streets, on a rundown tenement:

The carving at Third Avenue is missing its counterpart—it should read 110th Street:

This one at Fifth Street and First Avenue isn’t carved into the corner. The numbers look old, but not that old—perhaps the original corner blocks were replaced and new street numbers put up:

The loveliest street corner sign, of course, is in Tribeca, on Hudson and Beach Streets.