Storefront signage is a ubiquitous feature on New York City streets. Today, signs can barely seem worth noticing, the well-known fonts and logos blending into the scenery. But when the streets of New York were lined with mom and pop shops, the design of signs (through fonts, images, and use of space) often allowed these individual stores to stand out. The diversity of signage is especially eye-catching in historical photographs.

Planters Peanut warehouse and garage, 1954. Though Long Island City is more well known for its iconic neon signage (the Pepsi-Cola, Silver Cup Studios, Swingline Staples signs to name only a few) the manufacturing nature of much of the building stock made them the perfect venue for large scale advertising signage. The Planters Peanuts sign seen here was smaller and not electrified, in comparison to the large Planters neon that added to the brightly lit environment of Times Square, beginning in the mid 1940s.