September 26, 2004

Imprints from days gone by

Bill McCabe, here's a link for you: in reference to our conversation the other night about the ghostly images of old advertisements which still remain on the brick sides of some buildings and how cool they are - here is James Lilek's photo gallery of a ton of those ads - (Scroll down until you see the link "Ghost Ads").

Time-travelers. Very cool. Hoboken and Manhattan have a lot of these "ghost ads", too.

Posted by sheila
Comments

Another 50 years and they'll be gone. I know they're all not important enough to preserve, but I think a few of the best should be, just as a little piece of history.

Thanks, Sheila!

Posted by: Bill McCabe at September 26, 2004 12:58 PM

I recently found one that is in great condition in NE California (Cedarville to be exact).

My hometown in Oregon has a few good ones too. I'll have to get pictures next time I'm there.

Posted by: Nathan at September 26, 2004 02:09 PM

Nathan - that looks almost brand new! Beautiful, though. The glass Coke bottle gives it away ...

I think I might need to start documenting as I see them, too - The garment district in Manhattan is full of them.

Posted by: red at September 26, 2004 03:11 PM

This isn't visible in the photo, but the store is no longer Surprise Valley Drug. Cedarville definitely seemed like the kind of town where there'd be few of the painted advertisement's natural predators.

As a side note, whenever the dry lakebed to the east of the town fills up, small boats head out to harvest the reanimated sea monkeys. Bringing back sand to raise my own "wild" sea monkeys is something that I regretfully did not do.

Posted by: Nathan at September 26, 2004 03:51 PM

The equivalent down South are the chewing tobacco ads painted on old barns, usually within sight of the train tracks.

Posted by: John at September 27, 2004 02:16 PM