I remember that almost until it was demolished, that second Academy of Music had an old faded billboard on its side that advertised vaudeville shows. It read something like "3 Shows A Day - 25 cents". It fascinated me to see this little bit of history every time I looked up at it in the 70s and 80s. That billboard stayed there for awhile even when the Academy transformed into The Palladium and then was covered with an ad for the Palladium, if I remember correctly. Anyway, as someone always interested in "Old New York", I have always liked looking up at old billboards. But in recent years there are fewer and fewer of those and the technology for billboard making has quite changed. They are no longer painted, but computer generated to be put on large "canvasses" to be hung or made as huge electronic LED panels with ever changing information.
To sort of record and hold on to an old tradition, I started a mini project for myself 5 years ago in which I just started taking pictures (from street level) of old billboards that I noticed in and around the New York City/New Jersey area. I want to find as many as possible while they last and one advantage of all the buildings being torn down to make way for these new monstrosities going up (too opinionated?) is that often the side of an old building remaining will reveal a billboard that has been hidden. Below is a small sampling of what I have found. Can you recognize or guess the locations? Only one is fairly obvious.
All text and photographs: © 2014 Hank Smith. All rights reserved.
No use without written permission.
