When in San Francisco, meat lover’s and sign aficionados should stop by Little City Meats on 1400 Stockton Street in North Beach. The third generation owners run this butcher shop true to the spirit of their Italian ancestor who settled the area. It reminds me of the shops my Italian grandmother would drag me to in New York where she’d haggle with the butchers for hours to get the best cut for her bistecca fiorentina at the lowest price. The butcher would keep us fidgety kids quiet during the negotiations by giving us thick slabs of balogna on pieces of waxy white butcher paper. The signs in the window have been skillfully painted using a variety of lively old-school show-card alphabets and precise speed-ball style hand lettering.
Here, a sign painter in Northern Mexico worked this funky freehand cursive with a handful of sweet design tricks: chrome highlights, key lines, drop shadows. It’s slick and awkward at the same time, which makes it especially appealing. So appealing, in fact, that I was compelled to go in and buy something. I walked away with a plaster buddha the size of a deflated basketball that must weigh thirty pounds.
Sadly, the original Juices Fountain shack on Vine Street near Hollywood Boulevard was torn down to make room for the W Hotel and condos. Fortunately, Ms. Perez’s collection of brightly illustrated menu signs now live at her new place (now called just Juice Fountain) at 6332 Hollywood Boulevard, just around the corner from the old location. These signs date from the Fountain’s opening in 1969 and feature a masterful, exuberant single-stroke commercial script. The tropical jungle backgrounds are exceptionally well painted and the fruit illustrations are very simple yet manage to evoke the sweet taste of fresh fruit.
On Wabi-Sabi, the Japanese architect 
A neon sign lit at night is glorious, but often there are stories hidden behind the lights. The sign lit shouts the sign maker’s intention. The daylight sign tells other stories: the story of an aging neighborhood, the stories behind the business, the hidden components of the sign maker’s craft. This great old sign is locate in San Francisco’s North Beach at 1534 Stockton Ave. It advertises a nice little neighborhood bar that has been open since prohibition days. I can’t find any information about who Tony Nik was, but I wonder why and when somebody painted over the “Nik’s.” If anybody knows anything about the history of this joint, let me know.
Monkeypete loves the urban poetry of real hand-crafted neon signs. This amazing sign, on Woerner’s Cigar and Liquor, can still be found in San Francisco’s Tenderloin at 901 Geary Street between Larkin and Polk. The history and science behind neon can be found at http://inventors.about.com/od/qstartinventions/a/neon.htm. However, the emotional pull of a great neon sign is better explained by Jonathan Richman in his song Neon Sign which can be found on lyricsmania.com.
The sign maker’s craft is not a retro obsession. A drive today through almost any thriving Los Angeles commercial neighborhood east of Fairfax will reveal a vibrant living culture of handmade sign painting. From the auto-body shops of Pico Boulevard, to the storefronts of South Crenshaw, to the richly painted storefront bodegas and restaurants from East Beverly Boulevard to Downtown, the sign maker’s craft is thriving.
If I had known these signs on the Coney Island Boardwalk where going to disappear I would have taken better photos. I snapped this with a disposable film camera on a dreary winter morning in 1996. I was looking for an original New York egg-cream to cure a vicious hangover. I didn’t find an egg-cream, but, in the dull shadow of the ruins of the original Cyclone, I did find some good hand-painted signs. In recent years attempts have been made to revive the style of the original boardwalk signs, but too often the result is signs that are kitschy and self-consciously retro. This nice free-hand sign is not about capturing a style: it’s about selling sausage hero sandwiches.
I took this picture in 1995 along Highway 395 in the Owen’s Valley. This road runs north and south along the east side of the Sierra Nevada mountains. This is still one of my favorite roads in the United States. If I remember correctly, this sign was located somewhere near the town of Lone Pine. The letters where cut from 1/8″ doorskin and nailed to a plywood base. The construction was remarkably delicate considering the harshness of the climate. This sign disappeared to the elements sometime in the late 1990′s.Connect
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