Jersey City History - Ghost signs
Faded hand-painted reminders of products and businesses of times passed.
While Jersey City's skyline has dramatically transformed with towers of glass and steel, you can still find remnants of its rich history and culture painted on the sides of buildings known as Ghost Signs. These unexpected historic remnants symbolize an era between the 1880s and the 1950s during which neighborhoods flourished, railroads steamed through, and the city's economy, rich in jobs, attracted workers worldwide. As a result, industrial communities like Jersey City grew flourished, so did the strong commerce evident today as ghost signs.
Unfortunately, like many industrial cities across the US, Jersey City's ghost signs were preserved by negligence bred through poverty and a locally depressed economy. A time where building owners could not afford the paint required to cover the symbols needed to erase them from history.
As more and more new construction continues to spread across Jersey City, deteriorating buildings knocked down are revealing more and more signs long forgotten.
“Urban areas and lifestyles are changing so quickly that people are keen to retain a sense of continuity and connection to the places they live. A window back to a time before global brands dominated and everything was super-local.”
Ruins are the unconscious of a city." Ghost signs are fragments of urban memory, sharing stories of days long gone and a reminder to residents around them of their beloved city's diverse and rich culture. A history that any other building cannot tell.
Over time, ghost signs have been covered, removed, or painted over. Still, the ones that have survived the modernization remind us that "local" is how all businesses got their start. Although the world and lifestyles change, the thread of history runs deep, especially in Jersey City.
F I N A L L Y H O M E S H O P
Jersey City Photography Prints
Ghost Signs
E X P L O R E M O R E
