Preservation Research Officeby Michael R. Allen
This morning I spied this sign in a storefront transom at 1235 Washington Avenue downtown (the building dubbed the “Avenida” by its developers). The sign reads “Kitty Kay Gloves: For Women Who C—–.” Kitty Kay was a popular twentieth century manufacturer of women’s gloves and accesories, but I don’t know how the tagline ends. Care? Count? Anyone know?
by Michael R. Allen
On Missouri Avenue in East St. Louis stands a forlorn billboard amid many forlorn buildings. The west face of the ancient-looking, rusty and crusty two-sided board bears the numbers “1843.” The 3 is a bit crooked, and there is only the faintest outline of explanatory clues. A name plaque at the base of the sign reads “Peter Hauptmann Company,” the defunct owner of the sign.
Some people think that the numbers are the declaration of a year, which they are, but not of any year particularly momentous in the life of the city of East St. Louis. The sign, after all is an advertisement for David Nicholson 1843 Bonded Whiskey. I am amazed that a billboard would go unused anywhere. Missouri Avenue is not a slow street, since it co-exists as Illinois State Highway 15, a major path between Belleville and St. Louis. The billboard advertisement is the lowest form of commercial activity that often co-exists peacefully with prostitution and drug dealing as the last-ditch attempt to make money in a place. Why didn’t a cell phone ad replace the old whiskey sign years ago?
by Michael R. Allen
Yesterday morning I walked past the building at the southwest corner of 14th and Washington that once housed Ehrlich’s Cleaners. The two-story commercial building is undergoing demolition, and by yesterday morning was reduced to little more than a cast iron storefront and some first floor walls. A one-story building that stood to the west was already demolished. The buildings are being razed for the 22-story SkyHouse residential building.
Something on the remains of the western wall caught my eye. There was a ghost sign! Actually, the sign was too pristine to be a proper ghost. The building next door must have gone up when the sign was still new, and its wall then protected the sign for the next eighty years.
The sign advertised beer, with some words evident — beer, [dr]aught, bottled. Maybe the beer advertised was from the Lemp or Hyde Park breweries.
After work, I walked past again. However, by 5:15 p.m. there was no sign to walk past, no cast iron front to admire. The western wall and most of the storefront had fallen in the course of the day. I did not take any photograph earlier.
For me, the only extant traces of the sign were the song lyrics in my head, from Neutral Milk Hotel:
What a beautiful dream
That could flash on the screen
In a blink of an eye and be gone from me
I also carried the hope that someone else took a photograph while the sign was exposed.
A ghost sign emerges from a blocked-in loading dock cavity at the alley side of the former Scruggs-Vandervoort-Barney warehouse building at 917 Locust Street.
Does anyone know where one can find this sign?
Hint: It’s in St. Louis, north of Delmar Boulevard.