Montrose Avenue in Chicago has been home to a wonderful collection of artworks, displayed as signs by the many shops that line it. Sadly, much of the artwork featured below has disappeared, usually along with the businesses advertised, though here and there Montrose still boasts some fine roadside imagery. Back to The Western Avenue Art Gallery
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The Western Avenue Art Gallery: Beauty Salon Art
Beauty salons and barber shops, despite inroads by chains, have remained bastions of individual initiative. That initiative included, at least until recently, their often strikingly personal signs. Unfortunately, hand-made hair parlor signs have followed the broader signage trend toward clip art and plastic. The relatively short lifespans of both the signs and the salons have made this changeover rather rapid. The signs below were photographed mostly in the first two decades of the current century, and with a few exceptions they’re gone. Styles range from folky to ultra-glamorous to barely trying, and there are even a few fine efforts on
Continue readingSock Monkeys!
I love Rockford Red Heel monkey socks, and I love sock monkeys. You can see dozens of sock monkeys below, starting with a group of my favorites. You can also read my thoughts on sock monkeys from 1998. (The picture at top of that page is the installation that graced my daughter’s bedroom window for her first few years. And note that I was a little too harsh about the Rockford socks.) Sock monkey favorites All the rest Check out the Sock Monkey Museum in Long Grove, Illinois, a must visit for any sock monkey enthusiast. Also, you can click
Continue readingThe Fabulous World of Mr. C’s
Whether Mr. C’s Steak House in Omaha swarmed with kitsch or charm is all in your point of view. But take a look at the faces in its dioramas. Each is said to have represented a local notable. Yano and Mary Caniglia had a drive-in restaurant on 30th Street that they rebuilt and reopened as Mr. C’s in 1971. It was a classic local institution and one of those rare places where you could dine inside an art environment. It closed in 2007. You can read more about Mr. C’s, including its disappointing racial history, here: https://northomahahistory.com/2017/12/06/a-history-of-mr-cs-restaurant-in-north-omaha/
Continue readingRIP Jeff Elersic, artist
I never met Jeff Elersic, who died Dec. 14, 2024, at 70 years old, but I did manage to photograph his house/tirade in Geneva, Ohio, northeast of Cleveland. In common with a number of other art environments (W.C. Rice’s, Royal Robertson’s and Jesse Howard’s among others), Elersic’s expressed an uncomfortable degree of rage. To say his language was not measured is an understatement. But it was artfully written and arranged, and he was an excellent colorist. Have a look. Images are from 2016. You can view a short obituary here and read more about him at Spaces Archives.
Continue readingThe Red Hot Annex
Before I started photographing the gyros signs of Chicago — now collected as The Gyros Project — I had an idea to document signs at Chicago’s hot dog stands. I had become increasingly interested in roadside signs as examples of vernacular art, and hot dog stands have long been a ubiquitous part of Chicago’s street life. The red-and-yellow red hots signage that advertised and decorated so many of them literally set the local color for the city. I ultimately decided against hot dogs in favor of gyros, however, for two reasons. First, in those days (early 1990s) there were so
Continue readingRoadside Muskegon Marvels
No shortage of things to see to in this lakeside Michigan city. These photos mostly date to 2011. The Signs The Buildings
Continue readingHolland Truck Station
Holland Truck Station and its wonderful neon sign, whose wheels reportedly spun, once stood at the auspicious junction of U.S. Highways 45 and 50 just outside Flora, in southern Illinois. Initially a Pure Oil gas station and later Standard Oil, it offered broasted chicken among its treats and even hosted a disco at one point in its classic mid-century modern building. Bill and Martha Holland operated the truck stop adjacent to the Flora airport, which Bill, a Korean War-era fighter pilot, managed for a time. The Truck Station opened around 1957. These photos are circa 1993, after the business had
Continue readingRoadside Giants of Cross Plains
Back in the 1990s, the trio of roadside giants in the first image — pink elephant, towering Indian and modest knight — resided next to Loco Joe’s fireworks in Cross Plains, Tennessee, north of Nashville . Time took its toll, however. The knight disappeared and the other two figures weathered. They outlasted Loco Joe, however, as well as the adjacent antique mall. Today the elephant continues to decay in its original spot, glasses gone but still holding the martini glass complete with olive. The Indian moved across the road to Sad Sam’s fireworks and has been refurbished. You can read
Continue readingMansards Forever!
As Modernism lost its grip on the collective imagination in the second half of the 20th century, adding a mansard roof to a building must have seemed like an easy way to affix substance and class. Mansards proliferated, on buildings both residential and commercial. So why not achieve the same sort of upgrade by putting mansards atop signs, which were likely even more in need of classing up? I can’t speak for the whole country, but in the Chicago area our streets were once lined with this oddball expression of 1970s-era mansardism — signs with roofs. Back in 2003 I published a
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