Dingy, glorious shop-signs of New York City

How To Be a Retronaut has a large gallery of images from Store Front: The Disappearing Face of New York, a new book by James and Karla Murray that documents the vanishing golden-age shop signs of New York City, including interviews with the shop owners. The Associated Press review says, "They tell the story of the 20th century in New York, with wisps of the 19th and hints of the 21st. If you want to understand the aesthetics of the country's most famous city at street level, this is the best way to do it short of actually going there."

The Disappearing Face of New York