Highland Park demo reveals ghost sign

I don't know about you guys but I thought this was awesome! The hardware store next door to the Highland Theater was just demolished, which revealed a ghost sign on the building to the south.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7004/6...f55a90538e.jpg
217 by Zack Blackerby's Detroit, on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7006/6...ff52cf39bc.jpg
218 by Zack Blackerby's Detroit, on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7142/6...9a89019034.jpg
219 by Zack Blackerby's Detroit, on Flickr

I love that kind of stuff. Thanks for posting.

Very cool. My Internet research shows cf grocery was a Detroit area grocery chain from the 1910s to 1950s. Hopefully this bit of history doesn't get lost/demolished like the building next door.

http://67.20.89.159/wrolandhamilton/...se-detroit-mi/

Nice pics! They used good paint back then...

Wow! Really cool pics. Who'da thought that sign would have been painted there. Thanks!

C. F. Smith had their grocery stores in nearly every neighborhood in Detroit in the thirties and forties. They also had a huge warehouse complex just off of W. Grand Boulevard north of Michigan.....up around Vinewood or so. The warehouse was already abandoned and vacant in the early 1960s when I worked at the Vernor precinct. Thought -- at that time -- what a shame it was for such a huge complex to be empty and beginning to fall apart. Little did I know that was the future for most of the city. Sigh. :[[

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ray1936

C. F. Smith had their grocery stores in nearly every neighborhood in Detroit in the thirties and forties. ....

---

My Ma remembers them!

Years ago there used to be a ghost sign on a building in Ferndale advertising oil with "Prewar Quality". I thought that was pretty cool. It was back in the '80's.

Van Dyke and Georgia to be exact.

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7016/6...a65db4a05e.jpg
074 by Zack Blackerby's Detroit, on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7017/6...30fc40926d.jpg
071 by Zack Blackerby's Detroit, on Flickr

http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7141/6...2c3ba7cd4d.jpg
075 by Zack Blackerby's Detroit, on Flickr

Nice very nice pics

Hey Zack: Wasn't the Faygo signage on Mt. Elliott? I've never seen that style of Faybo logo.

I remember that logo from my childhood. They may have changed the logo in the early '60s.

The old logo was used here.

That Faygo logo is almost pristine.

Stromberg2

Love those ghost signs!

is the last one Kowalski?

This signpainter appreciates the post.

How cool is that find?

The Faygo Orange is on MT. Elliot just north of the Conant split about 3 blocks north of the Outlaws Motorcycle encampment. The building is on the west side of Mt. Elliot and the sign can be seen as you are driving south.

I found it interesting how the graffiti artists chose not to touch the Faygo sign.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hamtragedy

I found it interesting how the graffiti artists chose not to touch the Faygo sign.

---

A closer look reveals that the graffiti was painted on the inside wall ,not over the ghost signage. When the structure is completely razed the remaining signs will be exposed.

The New York Times, this morning, published an interesting essay about advertising murals that appeared in Highland Park after several buildings were demolished.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...LAND-popup.jpg
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/us...nd Park&st=cse

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Hamtragedy

The Faygo Orange is on MT. Elliot just north of the Conant split about 3 blocks north of the Outlaws Motorcycle encampment. The building is on the west side of Mt. Elliot and the sign can be seen as you are driving south.

---

Thanks for the correction, it is infact Mt. Elliot and Georgia, not Van Dyke like I said.

Is there a website that has a collection of all of these ghost signs? I would imagine they'd be destroyed by graffitti artists or further demolitions, so it would at least be nice if they were preserved on the internet. Really interesting bits of history.

There was something similar over ten years ago in downtown Wyandotte at Biddle Avenue and Elm. They were revealed after the Cahalan Building burned down. They were soon covered up when Nanna's Kitchen was rebuilt.

Here it is.

Any guess about what the next sign to the right of the Faygo sign, hiding behind the graffiti wall is? Looks like maybe a Kowalski sign.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Modusvivendi

Is there a website that has a collection of all of these ghost signs? I would imagine they'd be destroyed by graffitti artists or further demolitions, so it would at least be nice if they were preserved on the internet. Really interesting bits of history.

---

This site has a large collection of ghost signs.
http://www.detroitfunk.com/

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by old guy

Any guess about what the next sign to the right of the Faygo sign, hiding behind the graffiti wall is? Looks like maybe a Kowalski sign.

---

That's was my assumption.

Love that Honor Bright sign from the Times article. Boys playing in ties? Boys' "blouses"? "Playsuits"?!? Like so many of these things, it's a fleeting window into an almost entirely lost social history.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Ray1936

C. F. Smith had their grocery stores in nearly every neighborhood in Detroit in the thirties and forties...

---

Both my grandmother and my father worked for CF Smith stores at different times as young people. In the late '30s my father was a 13 year delivery boy for the CF Smith store on Charlevoix near Chalmers, when he wasn't otherwise busy going to Jackson Intermediate, working in my grandfather's nearby bar, or delivering the Detroit Times.

CF Smith was part of an earlier model of small neighborhood grocery stores, and were killed off by the perceived greater convenience and modernity of the new "self-serve" supermarkets. But my Dad often talks nostalgically of the old pre-self-service grocery stores where customers interacted directly with the clerks, like Smith's

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by EZZ

Nice pics! They used good paint back then...

---

Yeah, with lots of lead, probably why it still shows well.