A $25 “Curious” Hidden City Philadelphia membership to the person who names the locations of the most signs. We’d rather have answers that give the general vicinity–South Broad Street around Oregon Avenue, say–than exact addresses that come from Google. The last two signs no longer exist, but they are real beauties that only got taken down in the last five years, so we thought we’d throw them in. These aren’t easy, so send in your answers to editor@hiddencityphila.org, even if you only know a few.
11th and Sansom
56th and Lancaster
Master and Lee
Germantown and Lehigh
North Broad between Rockland and Ruscomb
Worth and Kinsey
Norris and Sepviva
Fitzwater between 11th and 12th
21st and Market
22nd and Cecil B. Moore
Trenton and Sergeant
5th and Girard
29th and Jefferson
Poplar and Watts
Here is another Center City landmark old sign, currently on eBay…
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170934447459
Pauline’s is on Sansom at 10th, the other end of the block where the above linked sign on eBay stood for decades.
Georgia Boy is on Lancaster, just before you get to Overbrook High.
Bell’s Auto is on Wallace at Ridge, across from the Laborer’s Union and around the corner from the new Calderwood Gallery (worth a visit!)
The BAR sign on Silk City I clipped off a building slated for demo, 12th above Market, standing on a U-Haul at lunch hour with a big old bolt cutter.
Our other Bulova Watch sign came down off the 4400 block of Lancaster and graced the wall of my garage for 15 years before going to a sign museum in Michigan.
I begged and pleaded for ages for the last Horn & Hardart sign still hanging, which was on City Avenue, but they ignored me and scrapped it. Same with the Log Cabin Inn sign on Baltimore Pike at Route 352.
Lots of great signs were salvaged years ago by me and several loony rivals, usually with just determined persistence and sometimes a greased palm at the finish line.