You see these faded advertisements on old buildings in a lot of New England towns, especially ones like Lowell, Massachusetts and Manchester, New Hampshire where there was a heavy industry presence. They’re called “ghost signs,” part of a marketing trend popularized between the 1880s and the 1950s. Cheap, disposable, easily replaced signage was not yet a thing. Business people made the logical choice to slap advertisements for their products and services right onto their walls.
I know these are in cities all over the world, but I get a lot of big New England energy here. It’s the swagger factor, the inflated confidence about the thing you’re selling. Laudanum for all that ills always, O’Brien’s Apothecary. You sure about that? These painted advertisements also seem like a way to give the bird to billboards and neon signs, the kind that always seem to end up with one, precariously flickering letter. I’m looking at you, letter “L” in the Glassy Bros. Deli sign. The ghost sign is the equivalent of getting the name of the girl you just met tattooed on your forehead. Bold. Hopeful.
I’m torn when I catch sight of these ads. The typography is often beautiful as are some of the graphics, if they can still be seen. They transform a dull brick building into a canvas that is, on the one hand, another form of mural. But on the other hand, it’s still about trying to sell me stuff. Ghost sign, you are old-timey lovely in a way that makes me want to sip lemonade on the porch while the Fourth of July parade passes by and my doors stay unlocked, apple pie cooling on the sill. Maybe that’s what I’m actually looking to buy—nostalgia for a time and way of life that didn’t actually exist then, either. Still, it’s nice to look up at the fading wicks of script in an ad for Ferguson’s Pickles and dream.
I was in New York City for a conference this fall. I stayed in Times Square. It had been about eight years since I had been to the city. I had forgotten how those five blocks of prime entertainment real estate were actually an epileptic’s terror zone. So much blaring, blazing, blinking, shining, shimmering, flashing, pixelated screaming from enormous flat screens that looked like the ones aliens use to broadcast their intended take-over of the earth. Good. Lord. I don’t think I need a 3-D tiger leaping out of the screen to convince me to buy more mouthwash or a new phone. Who’s idea was this? Does it actually work? Do you know anyone who was on the fence about picking up a bottle of the new Calvin Klein cologne until a 15-foot high video of a shirtless Benicio Del Toro moved the needle? I fear we are maybe five years away from Times Square becoming a Zuckerbergian meta-hellscape of free-floating screens and disembodied panels. Those jumbotrons will seem quaint.
The article I read about ghost signs was really about a Canadian artist named Matt Cohen. He started noticing all these advertisements on buildings around Winnipeg and became so intrigued and fascinated by them that he developed a way to bring these signs back to life. First Cohen does extensive historical research of the sign—looking at archival information and photographs if any exist. Next he photographs the existing signs. Lastly, he uploads those images to his computer, and using several different types of editing programs and software, recreates the original, which is then beamed up onto the original to create what he calls “Light Capsules.” In this way, Cohen is working to preserve more than just signage, he’s also trying to maintain a record of the city’s culture and historical legacy.
And so the ads pass into the realm of art; the art speaks across generations, tells us a story that has less to do with stuff and product and gadgetry and everything to do with who we are and what we believe in and the drives that ruled our lives at one point and time (or maybe still). And somewhere Andy Warhol smiles.