08.05.06
Posted in Photography, San Francisco History at 1:39 am by Thomas
While I’m on the subject of old street signage, there is also an amazing number of old painted advertisements that can be found in American cities. Sometimes and old house will fall to the wrecking ball and on the walls of the neighbors old advertisements suddenly see the light of the day. And then there are some ads that survive for long, long times on open walls.
Here is one example. MJB Coffee had these advertisements painted on house walls all over the Bay Area around 1906. The message was a simple one: “M.J.B. Coffee. Why?”
There are several sources that can be found through Google for some background on these ads, but nobody seems to have a conclusive explanation for the message in these ads. “Why?”
This ad has survived in San Francisco’s Chinatown for one hundred years… and if you look closely, you can see that it is actually painted over an even older MJB coffee ad!
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Posted in Photography at 1:24 am by Thomas
Here are some more old signs that I pass almost daily in my neighborhood. Two of the four signs are for existing establishments, while two businesses are sadly no longer with us.
The Food Fair Market is undergoing some major refurbishment and may not resurface as the same store and the Chop Suey must have been one of Chinatown’s bars a long time ago – so long ago that I can’t even find references for it in Google.
Click for a larger version.
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08.02.06
Posted in Good Stuff at 2:05 am by Thomas
We just saw Born into Brothels on DVD for the first time and we were both moved by the amazing story of these children and the energy that the photographer, Zana Briski, put into bettering the lives of the young inhabitants of the labyrinthine brothel in Calcutta.
One result of Mrs. Briski’s efforts has been Kids with Cameras, a non-profit organization that sponsors similiar photo projects with children in Egypt, Jerusalem and Haiti and also continues to support the children that we see in the movie.
For me this is a very inspiring organization, since not only is Kids with Cameras directly helping these children, it also allows us to see the world through the eyes of these children. It is a very simple and elegant idea that changes the future of the world, one child at a time.
Please consider to contribute.
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Posted in Photography at 1:12 am by Thomas
One thing that has always fascinated me about American cities is the abundance of old signage everywere. Wherever one goes, it will not take more than five minutes to find a vintage shop sign that hasn’t changed in fifty years.
Here are a couple of recent examples from a walk around the Nob Hill and Russian Hill neighborhoods of San Francisco… sadly, two of the stores – the New Russian Hill Grocery and the Elephant Laundry – have both recently closed their doors forever.
Click for a larger version. Taken with our “new” Nikon N80 on Kodak Gold 200
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