Highland Park demo reveals ghost sign

**DetroitZack** · January-15-12, 09:25 PM

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.

217 by Zack Blackerby's Detroit, on Flickr

218 by Zack Blackerby's Detroit, on Flickr

219 by Zack Blackerby's Detroit, on Flickr

**douglasm** · January-15-12, 09:40 PM

I love that kind of stuff. Thanks for posting.

**Zacha341** · January-15-12, 10:39 PM

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

**Modusvivendi** · January-15-12, 09:48 PM

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/

**EZZ** · January-15-12, 09:57 PM

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

**Cincinnati_Kid** · February-05-12, 04:04 PM

Originally Posted by EZZ

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

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

**Ray1936** · January-16-12, 11:29 AM

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.

**kathy2trips** · January-16-12, 06:54 PM

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!

**EastsideAl** · January-24-12, 12:50 PM

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

**Zackdog** · January-16-12, 08:53 PM

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.

**DetroitZack** · January-18-12, 08:57 PM

Van Dyke and Georgia to be exact.

074 by Zack Blackerby's Detroit, on Flickr

071 by Zack Blackerby's Detroit, on Flickr

075 by Zack Blackerby's Detroit, on Flickr

GUSHI · January-18-12, 09:00 PM

Nice very nice pics

**eastland** · January-18-12, 10:00 PM

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

**Parkguy** · January-18-12, 10:41 PM

The old logo was used here.

**Parkguy** · January-18-12, 10:34 PM

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

**stromberg2** · January-19-12, 11:47 AM

That Faygo logo is almost pristine.

Stromberg2

**gazhekwe** · January-19-12, 01:21 PM

Love those ghost signs!

**michigansheik** · January-19-12, 10:18 PM

is the last one Kowalski?

**Signman** · January-19-12, 10:27 PM

This signpainter appreciates the post.

**jerrytimes** · January-20-12, 09:32 PM

How cool is that find?

**Hamtragedy** · January-20-12, 11:59 PM

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.

**DetroitZack** · January-23-12, 10:55 AM

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.

**Hamtragedy** · January-21-12, 12:05 AM

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

detroitjim · January-21-12, 05:56 AM

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.

**renf** · January-23-12, 08:26 AM

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/23/us...nd Park&st=cse