These Wonderful Old New York Ad Murals Are Still Trying To Sell Us Stuff From The 1800s

In 1997, Frank Jump began photographing fading, painted ad murals on the sides of old New York buildings as part of a project for a documentary photography course he took at Empire State College in Manhattan.

All over the city, ads can still be seen that were first painted in the late 1800s or early 1900s. Often they sell goods that no longer exist (horse carriage repairs) or promote once-famous but extinct brands that recall a simpler time (Uneeda Biscuits).

Jump, 37 at the time he began shooting fading ad murals, felt a kinship with the images because in 1984 he had been diagnosed with HIV, at the very beginning of the AIDS epidemic, when most people with the disease soon died. "I am photographing these images that I never expected to live so long, and I never expected to live so long," he told us.

Jump is now 52 and awaiting the second print run of his book, Fading Ads of New York City. His collection of Kodachrome 35 millimeter positives now numbers between 5,000 and 10,000, he estimates. He "couldn't even begin to count" the digital images he has stored.

The ads survive because they were painted on brick. Sometimes new buildings shelter them for years until a demolition reveals them again, keeping the ads in a decades-long cycle of being hidden and revealed. Others are destroyed when brickwork is repainted or when a building becomes unstable.

Since Jump began this project, many of these ads have been obscured anew or destroyed. So he's starting a new project: The fading ads of Brooklyn.

Carriages, Coupes & Hansoms: Built in 1870, 109 West 17th Street is an example of how New York was once a horse town. Ad circa 1890s.

Baby Ruth Candy of Curtis's Candy of Chicago, circa 1930. Seen at Delancey Street. No longer visible.

Weber & Heilbroner, a men's haberdashery from 1913-1979. The business failed to pay state corporation taxes and entered bankruptcy. Seen at West 35th Street & Broadway. This ad is usually obscured by a newer banner ad.

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