Saturday, August 29, 2009

Sign of the times


A new store moved into the vacant storefront at our corner at 82nd and Amsterdam. It's some kind of men's grooming emporium. (Side bar: good luck with that.) It replaced a Dominican barber shop that had been there since probably the '50s or early '60s, judging from its dilapidated sign.

This week they removed the old barber shop sign to reveal the remnants of an even older sign--if you look closely you can just make out "Real Estate & Insurance."



Who knows how old it is. It looks older than the '40s, and there wasn't much real estate business in the '30s, so...it's old.

I'm a history buff but also rather self-absorbed, which means I'm both excited and weirdly surprised when confronted with evidence that life existed in my neighborhood before I got here. I always find it cool, like I've uncovered the tomb of King Tut. I want to stop everybody on the street and say, "Look at that old sign! Cool, huh??"

Samuel promises that when he builds his time machine he will travel back in time and verify the date.

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