Fifth Avenue in Bay Ridge is pretty typical shopping district with the usual mix of mostly independent stores characteristic of many city neighborhoods.
So what makes it stand out? The supercool store signs, so many of which are wonderful relics of a more personal city, when shop owners named their stores after themselves and advertised their business with big blocks of 1960s- and 1970s-style letters.
The sign for Fritsch Upholstering, above, is so old-school, they still use the old two-letter phone exchange: SH for nearby Shore Road.
The parking sign got in the way of the sign for Bay Ridge Bakery. That says “classic patisserie” underneath it in neon. Sounds delicious.
Ephemeral New York 