[Fading Advertisements] Nashville, Elizabethtown KY, Cincinnati, a PR Guru, and Pizza

Catching up on logging some fading advertisements I’ve seen around town and while traveling recently. A few “non-traditional” examples mixed in with the more common "paint on brick" theme.

No More Liquor Store - Elizabethtown, KY

Came across this one while passing through Elizabethtown on my way to Nashville. Once a Lee’s Chicken restaurant, these photographs might have been more fitting for a Suburbia Lost post, but it’s the signs that stand out here.

The former drive-thru arrows still show a stylized chicken, while the fading text of “King’s Liquors” can be seen above it. The more interesting sign, though, is the roadside one.

It’s been painted black and replaced with quick and casual white text reading: “No More Liquor Store” above a generic bottle of booze being poured out. I thought maybe this store had closed due to a local municipality or county “going dry” (apparently the outright banishment of alcohol sales in certain sections of Kentucky is still a thing). However, it seems that Elizabethtown is still a place where you can get your fix and this liquor store is simply just out of business, or as they put it: “no more.”

Nashville

A few quick signs seen in Tennessee’s capital during a brief visit.

In the Hillsboro Village neighborhood, it wasn’t implicitly clear if this American flag advertised anything other than patriotism itself, however, the peeling paint and dull colors align with the typical visual queues of “ghost signs.” I’m sure I could sprinkle in some commentary and draw a comparison between current political affairs and the physical state of this American flag, but maybe that’s too easy. And this sign existed well before Donald Trump realized his lawyer was recording everything anyways.

This fading ad for the Bradford Nichol Furniture company was documented by the master of ghost sign anthropology, Frank Jump, in 2010. Per some information he dug up on his website: J.H. Bradford’s wholesale furniture company was reported to be doing relatively well in 1901. Also: Bradford apparently had a relative who was killed by a cannon during a Fourth of July celebration.

While this painted sign is worn down, The Olive and Sinclair Co. is still very much alive in Nashville, producing “Southern Artisan Chocolate” and even providing tours of their facility. It was unfortunately not open when I swung by, but I met several locals who highly recommended the company’s confections.

Eastern Hills Printing Co.

Came across this small sign while on a walk around my neighborhood. Per a few quick searches: the Eastern hills Printing Co. seems to now be defunct in Cincinnati. The phone number in paint is now used by The Oakley Pub and Grill, a popular local bar known for great wings who’s patio and parking lot face this sign.

Dan Pinger Public Relations Inc.

I had intended to photograph this sign for the book back in 2015, but never got around to it. While up on the 21C Museum Hotel’s Cocktail Terrace to shoot the recent Barry McGee story (and imbibe some great drinks), I finally got a clear shot of this ghost sign several stories above Cincinnati’s Walnut St.

Interestingly enough, while attending an event recently, I saw a list of the Public Relations Society of America's award recipients throughout the years, Dan Pinger having been one. Pinger was known as an incredibly successful PR guy with several newspaper and magazine articles singing his praises. Apparently the Walnut St. offices beneath this sign were closed when his operation merged with the local Powers Agency in 2007. Pinger went on to be a consultant and appears to now be retired. If you know him, please tell him I appreciate his sign and love the simplistic, excellent logo. I bet he has some incredible stories from his career.

One of Pinger’s former employees was Nick Vehr, the Cincinnati City Councilman who once tried to lure the Olympics to Cincinnati. Nick’s interesting tale was highlighted in a 2012 QC/D article. 

Pizza, Condos, Nondescript Words, and a Few Signs From The Book That Could Soon Disappear. Also: Murals?

I’ve been working at an office in Downtown Cincinnati for the past two years. The Donatos Pizza at 8th and Main streets was never really a particular favorite lunch spot, but it was cheap and the seven inch pizza didn’t pack too many calories. I hardly ever had to wait in line and very rarely saw other people dining in. Once, I decided to eat-in since their “party room” was open. I don’t think they intended for it to be accessible and I don’t believe anyone had rented it out for a function in some time. The room was rife with dust and lined with late 90s chain pizza propaganda. I never found myself craving Donatos too often (better local pizza is just a quick streetcar ride away and around the corner) and didn’t notice they had closed until I walked by recently and saw workers removing the physical signs from the building.

Those signs (or the wilted letters reading: “Our Promise: To Serve The Best Pizza”) weren’t really the “ghost signs” I was interested in, though. It was the many others that adorned the bricks at 8th and Main. Donatos occupied the ground floor of a six-story historical building that had long been vacant and boarded up. An accompanying two-story building once housed for-profit Antonelli College. This corner of the block has been targeted as a redevelopment site for some time. In the Spring of 2016, the Historic Conservation Board approved a plan to demolish the building. A 14-story luxury condo complex was planned to go in its place with another 14-story condo tower rising across 8th St. where a surface parking lot now stands. The development stalled and was eventually reworked to be an apartment complex rather than condominiums. As the Cincinnati Business Courier’s Tom Demeropolis investigated in July 2018, Donatos’ lease was up, but the demolition wasn't likely to come anytime soon. The developers are still working angles on local financial incentives.

When the building does come down, though, a few fading advertisements will be lost. Signs for “Globe Furniture” and “Kay’s Furniture” appeared in my 2015 book and some nondescript letters adorn the bottom corner of the bricks, remnants of a hand painted advertisement now long lost.

Demolition of historical structures in Downtown Cincinnati can often be controversial, but I’ve heard through some folks that this building is apparently in really rough shape, renovations not being economically feasible. Unlike the politically charged demolition of the nearby Dennison Hotel by mayoral campaign donors (which brought nothing to the city so far except a gravel lot), the site seen in these photographs has somewhat of a plan in place. While the arrival of new towers would alter the skyline and remove some old advertisements (none of which are particularly significant), the situation raises another question regarding paint on bricks. Should the second apartment tower spring up across the street (assuming the first one ever happens) it would block an ArtWorks mural as well as a mural created by local branding and design firm Deskey.

Hand painted advertising isn’t the most common form of selling a product these days (although examples can still be found locally), but painted works of art in the public view have become ubiquitous across the region the last few years. As they age and the environment around them changes, what does their future look like? Will there be a “Fading Murals of Cincinnati” book at some point?

A question for another day, another post, perhaps.