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Ghost Signs: The Fading Face of NYC
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Red Young
March 02, 2025 • Reading time: 10 minutes
Good Morning! 🌞
Today, we’re solving a mystery together – one that involves the disappearance of character and color in New York.
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I wrote a shorter version of this piece for W42St, Hell’s Kitchen’s very own publication. Check out their awesome local journalism.
Think of this one like a Director’s Cut 😎👇🏽
NYC Neons: Why are they Vanishing? ⚡️
New York City’s character is abruptly vanishing,
a shift marked by digital screens and generic storefronts replacing historic signage.
Blazing neon signs, once glowing beacons across the five boroughs, are either being replaced or disappearing entirely.
Times Square, once a riot of glowing glassworks bursting with rainbows of color, has traded most of its brilliance for LED displays.
Even Harlem’s Apollo Theatre made the switch, retiring its iconic neon for more modern signage.
Radio City’s signs, the largest perhaps most recognizable in the city, could face a similar extinction.
In Hell’s Kitchen, the disappearance of one famous icon is the latest tragedy.
The renowned Smith’s Bar, shuttered after 70 plus years, has left the neighborhood in mourning.
To add insult to injury, the hulking neon sign that served as a fixture of 44th Street for decades went missing.
One of the few remaining landmarks from the days of Hell’s Kitchen’s glory stood without an identity.
Smith’s first opened its doors to Hell’s Kitchen in 1954.
The old-school Irish bar, serving classic specialties like pigs knuckles, knockwurst and lamb stew, is remembered as a crossroads of NYC’s broad cast of characters.
From theater junkies loading up before a show, to Port Authority’s rat-raced commuters, Smith’s connected Hell’s Kitchen bar crawlers with a rhythmically Cheers style.
The final moments of Smith’s as we knew it.
On a busy rush hour morning, I trudged through 8th Avenue and decided to break routine to check out the remnants of old Smith’s, set to become another weed dispensary.
As fate would have it, a crew of gloved and masked men were piecing apart the final sets of the sign as I approached, wheeling them into a curbside van.
“Where are you taking the sign?” I prodded, stunned and defensive.
I was halfway envious that they’d gotten to it first. In my wildest dreams, Smith’s 70-foot neons would adorn my apartment’s walls.
The deinstallation process.
One of the guys stops and smiles. “The New York Sign Museum!” He belts cheerfully.
“It’s in Brooklyn – they’re going to take it apart and put it all back together.”
Relieved that the sign was in good hands, I was excited to see what would become of it.
And this sign museum was so curious – what other relics of Hell’s Kitchen and New York’s past sat on display?
I embarked eight miles east of Hell’s Kitchen to the fringes of Bed-Stuy to find out.
I arrived at the HQ of Noble Signs, a company specializing in the crafting, designing, repairing, installing and de-installing of any kind of sign you can think of.
They’ve designed dozens of memorable signs across the city from the NY Aquarium to the Harlem Breakfast Club, all in classic NYC style.
Noble has a knack for rescuing ‘Ghost Signs’ like Smith’s, signage left behind when a business passes on.
After amassing a solid collection of Ghosts, Noble started up the New York Sign Museum to preserve and celebrate New York’s visual past.
Classic NYC signs sit high above the NYSM.
“The mission from the beginning has been to combat the disappearance of the unique elements that defined New York City,” says Noble Co-Founder David Barnett.
“What makes classic New York signs unique, and what was it like to be here during that time? We want to preserve and recreate that feeling.”
Beginning their work around 2010, Barnett and co. have become experts in NYC’s signs, from the details of crafting and design, to the meticulous electric and metallurgy processes, and the materials and paints used to deliver that final flourish.
Noble’s Co-Founder David Barnett revives Smith’s G R I L L signage one letter at a time.
A graphic designer by trade, Brooklyn native Barnett had to learn to put his hands to work, installing and disassembling the signs in the middle of the bustling chaos of the city.
“The goal was never to sell any of these signs,” Barnett says. “We have a passion for preserving them, and figured they serve well as a resource.”
The team decided to solidify the dream, and after approval of nonprofit status, the New York Sign Museum was born.
Tours and exhibitions at the NYSM have been an overwhelming success. “Every time we have a tour, it’s a full house,” Barnett says, mentioning audiences of curious children to nostalgic adults.
The wizards behind the operation: David Barnett (left) and Mac Pohanka
Historical preservation is key to the integrity of cultures and neighborhoods like Hell’s Kitchen.
With roots as a rough-and-tumble port town, it developed alongside the gritty playground of 20th century Times Square.
All throughout, the neighborhood’s bold signage showed the world that its character was as radiant as its lights.
“It was a special place and so many people have memories there,” Barnett muses about Smith’s.
“Its sign was clearly handmade by an expert in stainless steel metalwork and neon tubing, worked into that classic celebrated style that defined New York back in the day,” Barnett is in a sentimental, wistful trance now. “Smith’s was an amazing example of that.”
For businesses like Smith’s to survive and ventures like NYSM to thrive, a common denominator is money.
The final businesses are holding strong in Midtown West, but the reality of surging rents continue to tighten a grip around the throats of living history.
“It’s not even a facelift,” Barnett says of Hell’s Kitchen and Times Square’s changes. “It’s like they just put something completely new over the old thing.”
During the 20th century, 9th avenue was dominated by meat and dairy markets that served tens of thousands of homes across the city. Now, only Esposito and Piccinini Bros. remain.
On Atlantic Avenue, a historic factory building doubles as Noble’s no-frills design studio and the humble HQ of NYSM.
There are hopes for a more spacious future where the dazzling neons and ceramic masterpieces can perform. “I can imagine an airplane hangar,” Barnett says of a wishful future for NYSM.
“Or a recreation of entire city blocks with signage to match. Like Disneyland of old New York.”
What’s left of Smith’s is now shoddy cannabis dispensary Elevation HQ.
As for Smith’s, vintage photographs and beer-soaked tales of its heyday will have to do for its legacy.
The dispensary owners refused to keep the signs, even when Barnett offered to refurbish and reinstall them for display on the new business. “They didn’t have the vision,” he shrugs.
Hell’s Kitchen is no stranger to change. Its resilience and flexibility has kept it at the frontier of culture in New York for centuries.
“When people talk about old New York, they mention how it was scary and gritty,” Barnett says.
“But at the same time, something about it was more family-like. It felt like it was for everybody, and these signs represent that warmth and inclusivity.”
Looking back on old New York and celebrating its neon-soaked, people-first past, we’ll find that the future of our neighborhoods are just as bright.
Hell’s Kitchen Kids on West 47th Street in the 1970’s.
Editor’s note:
As corruption and disunity plague the five boroughs, we possess a unique opportunity: to band together as a community, and retain pride in the magic we have left.
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