Urbanite

The site of the Longchamps on Sunday (Photo by Elisabeth Stuveras)

And the sign as it looked toward the end of its life on Madison Avenue, in June 2006. (Photo via everystreetinmanhattan on Flickr)

The massive Art Deco neon sign at 423 Madison Ave. was a beautiful reminder -- certainly the last we know of -- of the old Longchamps chain of restaurants. They once dotted the city until being absorbed decades ago by Reise Restaurants and the locations rebadged.

The persistence of the Madison Avenue sign prompted a Lost City blog post in 2007, and back in the late 1990s, mentions in New York Times articles, one of which offered this morsel from a Longchamps insider in 1998:

''As a former Longchamps restaurant employee, I am familiar with the background of this sign. It was one of the earliest neon signs in the city, erected by the Claude Neon Sign Company over 50 years ago, and was for a time the only illuminated sign on Madison Avenue. The Department of Buildings should be called in to order the sign removed before it collapses!''

Well, you know where this is going. The sign is indeed no longer there, having disappeared at some point in the past year or so. We plan to make a few inquiries about its fate -- if ever there was a sign that had been worth saving, this was it -- but we can't help but fear that it was destroyed.

It wasn't that long ago that we'd happily crane our neck to take its measure whenever we'd pass by, and wonder about the lost wonders of this restaurant chain, whose space at 423 Madison Ave. is now occupied by a Pax sandwich shop.

The sign, however, did leave a little reminder of its long tour of duty above Madison Avenue. As you can see from the photo above, the old sign took a big bite out of this townhouse's cornice. It's gone, sure, but definitely not forgotten.

In fact, Longchamps does not rest easily in the annals of New York restaurant history, having a funny way of reasserting itself in the streetscape.

A few years ago, long-concealed Art Deco neon signs for Longchamps, below, re-emerged at the corner of East 42nd Street and Lexington Avenue, at the base of one of the most Art Deco of buildings, the Chanin Building. After signage for Houlihan's restaurant was stripped, and before a K&G Fashion Superstore sign could replace it, these Longchamps beauties came to light. Whether they were eventually destroyed or simply covered up again, we do not know. But these relics looked stunning beneath Renee Chamberlain's masterful frieze that gleamed right atop them. For a few days, another era held court at 42nd and Lex.

We can't help but think about Longchamps whenever we pass this corner, as we always will a little farther uptown, where a chomped cornice serves as a quiet reminder.

-- Rolando Pujol

We've been seeing fewer Sabrett hot-dog cart umbrellas, (and more for banks and other advertisers that buy up this valuable space) so this sticker for the purveyors of the street-food classic caught our attention -- and made us smile.

It's in the subway entrance at the Hotel St. George in Brooklyn Heights, which itself is a decidedly unique and refreshingly unpolished portal to the subway. Right outside is a wine shop with fantastic neon, and inside you''ll find a mix of retail, a sushi restaurant, and then, an elevator ride down to the 2 and 3 trains, where some very 1950s flooring awaits you. A few more photos after the jump.

-- Rolando Pujol

Grids of lights projected on buildings all around the Meatpacking District in the early morning today had passers-by intrigued. What did they mean? And who was the team with walkie-talkies setting up the bizarre installation? And why?

It was a crew from Obscura Digital, a San Francisco-based applied visual technologies company. They were calibrating their equipment at around 3:30 a.m. and the set-up itself was an interesting show: Grids of lights on about 10 buildings around Little West 12th across from Pastis. But that was only the set-up.

Tonight at 9 p.m. comes the show. If you’re in the Meatpacking District, look for the buildings to be turned into six-story projector screens for a multi-media presentation that the Obscura team was being very coy about.

-- Garett Sloane

About a week ago, we got a call from a reader wondering why work on the massive geisha mural at West 34th Street and Eighth Avenue had stopped. We'd been documenting the epic scale of its progress (click here), and it come to a halt shortly thereafter. Well, the project was completed Wednesday, and say what you will about such mega ads, it's quite an accomplishment -- ephemeral though it may be.

Two more recent photos after the jump

-- Rolando Pujol

Picture it. It's a lazy Sunday afternoon in 1984 and there's isn't much of anything to do, except, perhaps, to watch television. And 11 Alive is ready to deliver. We enjoyed this collection of commercial breaks from Sunday's Great Movie. For starters, there's that funky jingle for the bumper -- to us, it just screams Sunday afternoon. And then a great collection of commercials. These ads are treasure troves of New Yorkania, and of the area's retail history. Do watch it from the beginning for the full effect, but if you want the highlights, here's where you want to fast forward:

2:27: Kleinsleep (The jingle: Have more fun in bed)

4:48: The Money Store (with Phil Rizzuto offering a Cabbage Patch doll giveaway)

5:18: Apex Tech (with the "Apex Tech Man"; remember, you have to call first)

6:19: NBO (They sell everything except shoes!)

6:28: Crazy Eddies (Where prices are insane!)

6:57: Jordache Jeans (The sound was less disco by now, but it's worth a listen to see one of those practices you never see on TV anymore. The local announcer (in this case Bill Biery) interrupts the ad at the end to tell us that the jeans are "available at Sid's Pants and Jeans Country."

Click here. The embed function has been disabled.

-- Rolando Pujol

Previous Throwback Thursdays here.

Folks soak in the sun last Friday near Giginos at Wagner Park in lower Manhattan. The AIA Guide calls the building, which is also a viewing platform, "a grand brick sculpture." (Photo by Rolando Pujol)

* The next chapter in the saga to save a row of small businesses on Ninth Avenue in Chelsea is May 3, when a protest will be held. [Jeremiah's Vanishing New York]

* Those ubiquitous Star Wars ads around the city have inspired noteworthy subway mashups. [Gothamist]

* ... and who could miss the Slave Leias at Comic Con. [Vulture]

* "Look who's talking to Charlie ... Charlie Rose." D.C. expats may remember that jingle from his less highbrow WRC-TV talk show of the early 1980s, but now this video brings the jingle to life. [Gothamist]

* Illegal advertising blossoms anew, this time for cell phones. [Queens Crap]

* Last Saturday marked the 81st anniversary of Mae West's imprisonment on Roosevelt Island on a morals rap. [Roosevelt Islander]

* Remembering the Brooklyn earthquake of 1985. Yep, you read correctly. [OTBKB via Gowanus Lounge]

* Jeff Koons' sculptures now grace the top of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. [Unbeige]

* And up in Massachusetts, an awesome neon Dunkin Donuts sign from 1957 -- from the era before there was a DD on every block -- is for sale. [Hatch]

-- Rolando Pujol, Cha

Our post last week on an innovative bus shelter ad to promote Spike's presentation of Star Wars films generated tons of interest. But the overall campaign is quite humorous. Here are a few more examples of the campaign, and we'll update this post with any others we encounter.

And by the way, that cool light saber ad? One of the fluorescent lamps is already out.

The Star Wars ad lit up at night; the day shot is below. More examples of the ad campaign here.(Rolando Pujol)

Kudos to Spike for this incredibly cool bus-shelter ad. The network has installed Stars Wars faux "light sabers" where the ad would normally go, with the promo text at the bottom. We are instructed to "use only in case of Sith." At first, we thought we were seeing the fluorescent lights of an empty ad slot, not a clever ad campaign. We snapped this at West 34th Street and Eighth Avenue Tuesday. More examples of the campaign can be found here.

Though nobody has been dumb enough to smash the glass and try to grab the pseudo sabers -- yet -- this campaign reminds us of the media kerfuffle that Levis created in 1996. The company sandwiched $50 Dockers pants into bus shelters, and people being people, they proceeded to smash and grab them. Here's a Channel 5 report on that incident, with Rudy Giuliani slamming the campaign and a pre-MTA Elliot Sander, then running the Department of Transportation, promising ad-policy changes.

-- Rolando Pujol

* See photos of die-hard Star Wars fans

* Photos from Phantom Menace

* Photos from Attack of the Clones