(Roughly) Daily

This old advertisement for Harold Lloyd’s 1922 classic silent comedy, GRANDMA’S BOY, was rediscovered in February 2012 when the building next to it, built in 1923, was torn down. Sadly, this building was also scheduled to be demolished, and indeed it was just a couple of weeks later, taking the advert with it. Source: C. Browne, http://www.flickr.com/photos/carolbrowne/6937438297/. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic licence.

“Ghost Signs” are advertisements painted on the sides of buildings (before the advent of billboards), then obscured by subsequent construction/redecoration (or simply left to weather nearly away), only lately to be uncovered/rediscovered.   Once a vital part both of America’s young consumer economy and of its visual landscape, they are beginning again to attract attention, as at The Basement Geographer (via which, the image above), and in the Ghost Signs and Faded Signage pools on Flickr and in the Wikimedia Commons.  (C.f. also, the UK website Ghost Signs.)

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As we dream in technicolor, we might send fertile birthday wishes to Jonathan Chapman; he was born on this date in 1774.  A pioneering nurseryman, he introduced apple trees to large parts of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois… earning him the nickname by which he is much better known:  Johnny Appleseed.

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