Features Podcasts Family Video Comics Music Tech Science Books Film & TV Games ✚

Jill

Project Neon: 800 neon signs in New York City

Mark Frauenfelder at 4:28 pm Fri, Nov 30, 2012

— FEATURED —

Book Review

The Man Who Laughs: grotesque Victor Hugo potboiler was the basis for The Joker

Feature

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

Book Review

The Twelve-Fingered Boy - mesmerizing YA horror novel

— FOLLOW US —

Boing Boing is on Twitter and Facebook. Subscribe to our RSS feed or daily email.

 

— POLICIES —

Except where indicated, Boing Boing is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution

 

— FONTS —

Tweet
Kindle

Ben Marks of Collector's Weekly says: "We just published an interview with Kirsten Hively, whose Project Neon documents about 800 neon signs in New York City (her iPhone app directs users to about 120 of them)."

I’ve loved neon signs for a long time. When I would travel to cities like Portland or Chicago, I would take photos of neon signs and print them to hang up on my wall. Two years ago, I read that it was the 100th anniversary of the debut of the modern neon sign at the Paris Motor Show. It struck me then that I didn’t have a single photo of neon signs in New York. I think I took it for granted that I could see those signs any day. But those classic signs aren’t necessarily permanent.

At the time, I had just started a new job on the Upper East Side, in a neighborhood I’d never spent much time in. Getting out of work at 5 p.m., it was pitch-black outside. So I thought, “Maybe I’ll go take photos of those nice signs near my office”—at the Cork & Bottle liquor store and Goldberger’s Pharmacy. I figured I’d walk around the neighborhood. I vaguely remembered another up on 86th Street, at Papaya King. After I found that one, I ended up walking for hours and hours—and taking so many photos. Later, I went home and put them up on my Flickr.

A couple nights later, I went out to the Upper West Side and spent even more hours wandering around. I didn’t get to everything, but I got obsessive about taking photos of neon signs and marking where they were. When I had searched for other people’s photos of neon signs online, often the caption wouldn’t say where the image was taken. So I tried to be careful about always documenting the address of the place.

Neon Lost and Found: Where New York City Still Burns Bright

Mark Frauenfelder is the founder of Boing Boing and the editor-in-chief of MAKE and Cool Tools. Twitter: @frauenfelder. Come and hear Mark speak at the ALA conference in Chicago on July 1.

MORE:  art

More at Boing Boing

Eurovision 2013: An American in London

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

  • http://twitter.com/digitalArtform Joseph Francis

    If you know where to look you can still see the nearly century-old remains of one of LA’s early neon signs…
    http://www.digitalartform.com/archives/2005/01/outpost_sign.html

  • http://twitter.com/randywalters Randy Walters

    They say the neon lights are bright on Broadway; they say there’s always magic in the air.

  • http://thomashawk.com/ Thomas Hawk

    800 from New York is cool.  I’ve document over 10,000 all over America.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/sets/72157603706268197/

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/E47NEV4HSLG6J6KP3GQAZ6LFJ4 aliced

    cookeville tn is in the process of contining to preserve one of it’s iconic neons  CREAM CITY in the historic district. 

  • http://johnstonsigns.blogspot.com/ dejoh

    Check out this place.  Always admired neon
    http://www.signmuseum.org/