Signs of the Past: Ann Foster Music Shop

This photo was sent to me by the fabulous DJ Nico, who took this photo in 2002 long before Lister Block was renovated to its current immaculate state.

As a new Hamiltonian, I was not able to have the pleasure of seeing this sign myself, let alone know anything about the Ann Foster Music Shop, which was located downtown in the Lister Block shopping arcade in the space where Tourism Hamilton is now situated.  Some research online quickly lead me back to the always-interesting chronicles of CBC Hamilton's Paul Wilson, who shares my interest in historic buildings, signage and local history. This piece of Wilson's from last summer tells the tale of Ann Foster, a pianist who opened her shop dealing in records, instruments and sheet music in 1942.  After Ann suffered a heart attack in 1969, an employee took over the shop and ran it until 1995 when Lister closed down and was threatened to be demolished.

I'm sad to have not seen this wall sign for myself, but I love what I see here-- the simple cut letters, signature-like typeface, and minimal colour scheme that might take its inspiration from piano keys.  This sign perhaps gives us a little glimpse into the character of the mythic Ms. Foster.

The Canadian Red Cross Society

 

Institution:  The Canadian Red Cross Society

Location:  400 King Street East, West of Victoria Avenue 

Neighbourhood:  Landsdale

Sign Type:  awning valance sign

Leading up to this post, I did a ton of research on coloured spandrel panels in institutional architecture of the late 1950s and 1960s, only to take a closer look at this photo and realize that the Red Cross building just outside of Downtown Hamilton isn't made of them after all...it just looks like it at first glance.  So much for that!

This building cuts a fairly clean cloth on an otherwise grim stretch of King Street East not too far from my home.  It is quite typical of institutional architecture constructed in the mid 20th century, but the V-shaped awning gives this building a slight Googie flair.  The pairing of navy blue panels with the red text and cross in the sign is striking.  The typeface used for this sign, Futura, is definitely one of my all-time favourites (and reportedly, a favourite of Stanley Kubrick's as well).  The paint job of the cut-out letters could use some TLC.

There is a smattering of Googie architecture and signage across Downtown Hamilton and Stoney Creek.  I will definitely feature more of it here in the near future.

Baltic Bread

Business:  Baltic Bread

Location:  200 Gibson Avenue, North of Barton Street East

Neighbourhood:  Gibson/Barton Village

Sign Type:  wall sign

Baltic Bread is a charming little bakery whose compact facade drew my attention as I passed by one dreary day-- the sign was actually more of an afterthought.  According to the bakery's website, they've been making authentic European breads for over half a century.

After some quick online research, I learned that this tile exterior can be dated roughly to the late 1950s, when tiles in arrangements of alternating solid colour, checks and/or stripes were in fashion for both architectural exteriors and interiors (a couple of examples of this can be found here and here). The sage green tiles with smaller hits of checkerboard pattern throughout remind me a bit of textile patterns from the same period.  It's likely that the use of smaller and more detailed tilework in the 1950s was an outgrowth of the use of larger Vitrolite tiles in the 30s and 40s.

The cursive font used on the bakery's sign reminds me of a part in the movie Helvetica where the font was deemed a revolutionary move away from the ubiquitous use of cursive script in advertising and design in the 40s and 50s.  I believe they may have even disparagingly described such fonts as being feminine, or design conventions of the time as being highly feminized.  I appreciate the use of cursive script in this sign and the whimsy of the 'i' dotted with a star. There is also something very of-the-time stylistically about having Crusty Rolls  appear in single quotation marks-- not something you see very often today. This entire storefront and sign can be seen as a time capsule of subtle 1950s design conventions.  Feminized or not, I am not ashamed to say that I love the buoyant (and sometimes downright pretty) design of this period.

Playhouse Theatre

Playhouse marquee, north face

Playhouse marquee, south face

Business:  Playhouse Theatre/City Kidz
Location:  177 Sherman Avenue North, North of Barton Street East
Neighbourhood:  Gibson/Barton Village
Sign Type:  marquee

The Playhouse Theatre building, now occupied by an organization called City Kidz, is a beacon of red and cream on a sleepy patch of Sherman Avenue North.  This colour scheme of this building reminds me of the foyer and stairwells of Toronto's Massey Hall which given an Art Deco treatment during extensive renovations in 1933.  The Playhouse was one of Hamilton's 20 theatres in the 1930s and 1940s-- a significant amount due to the escapist entertainment movie houses provided during the Great Depression.  Theatre marquees, with their lights, bold type and grand proclamations of thrills and chills, are timeless symbols of the excitement, glamour and suspended disbelief that washes over us as we cross the threshold of a theatre and into the world of the movies.

According to this article in Hamilton Magazine on old Hamilton movie houses, The Playhouse was the architectural twin to a neighbouring theatre, Main East's Community Theatre.  These theatres, along with the Avalon on Ottawa Street and the Empire and the Queen's (both on Barton Street East) entertained the working class and immigrant population of Hamilton's East End beginning in the 1930s.

The Playhouse Theatre is also known as the site of a meeting between Local 1005 members of the United Steelworkers of America from Stelco on July 15, 1946, after which the workers marched to the plant gates (about 20 minutes north on foot) to start the famous strike of 1946. According to Wikipedia: "The fight was over Union recognition, a 40-hour work week and wages. With the help of Hamilton's community this struggle changed Canadian Labour history. It forced employers to accept collective bargaining and helped start a mass trade union movement in Canada."

Hendry's Shoes

Business:  Hendry's Shoes

Location:  657 Barton Street East, east of Earl Street

Neighbourhood:  Gibson/Barton Village

Sign Type:  wall, grand projecting

Materials of Note:  Vitrolite, neon, mechanical elements

Barton Village is home to a wealth of beautiful churches, Polish, Portugese and Italian delis and bakerys and outstanding old signs and shop fronts. Hendry's is a striking old storefront with a dignified wall sign in pretty great condition and a grand projecting sign in less than great condition. The black sign is made of Vitrolite, an opaque glass material commonly associated with the Art Deco and Art Moderne movements. The font, Broadway, is a typeface typical of the 1920s and 1930s. This article that appeared in the Spec shortly after Hendry's closed in 2012 indicates that the shop opened in 1928, so it is quite likely that the shop's sign is the 85 year-old original. Along with its striped black and white awning, this old sign cuts a clean cloth, exuding an air of sophistication and elegant masculinity.  

Hendry's grand projecting sign, west face

Hendry's grand projecting sign is well-worn from time and the elements.  Much of the colour has faded.  The clock featured towards the bottom of the sign is unique, and the text wide regular narrow looks like a much later addition.  I would love to see an old photo of this sign with its neon lit. It's great (and rare) to see a pair of signs like these two together.  This storefront seems to be a well-known one in Barton Village, and I hope whoever purchases the building chooses to keep (if not restore) these treasures.

Historic Signs

Formerly Hallman's Chevrolet Showroom, East Rochester NY, 2012.  Photo: T. Bursey

Signs are everywhere. And everywhere they play an important role in human activity. They identify. They direct and decorate. They promote, inform, and advertise. Signs are essentially social. They name a human activity, and often identify who is doing it. Signs allow the owner to communicate with the reader, and the people inside a building to communicate with those outside of it.

Signs speak of the people who run the businesses, shops, and firms. Signs are signatures. They reflect the owner's tastes and personality. They often reflect the ethnic makeup of a neighborhood and its character, as well as the social and business activities carried out there. By giving concrete details about daily life in a former era, historic signs allow the past to speak to the present in ways that buildings by themselves do not. And multiple surviving historic signs on the same building can indicate several periods in its history or use. In this respect, signs are like archeological layers that reveal different periods of human occupancy and use.

Michael J. Auer, Preservation Brief 25: The Preservation of Historic Signs.  National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior

Grant Avenue, San Francisco, May 2008.  Photo: T. Bursey