ABSTRACT
These fading signs have generated increasing attention. Press reports inevitably present them as symbols reflecting a changing world. The Sun Herald’s Tim Barlass (2014a) thus described them as “the signwriter’s art of yesteryear, slowly disappearing from the facades of Sydney’s commercial property that have … escaped the attentions of developers.” The ghost signs exposed by the demolition of a derelict building in Detroit prompted Dan Barry to muse that the long lost signs re-emerged “to an entirely different city, one of abandonment, decline and the hope for a return to “… days … [that were] carefree and smiling” (2012, p. 10). Such reports also highlight enthusiasts’ efforts to document these signs before they disappear altogether. Scholarly accounts explore similar issues. Describing ghost signs as ‘urban palimpsests’, Sydney Shep uses the signs created by Wellington’s printing industry to demonstrate the ways that these “urban architextures have much to tell us about the fundamental emplacement of our own pasts, presence, and futures” (2015, p. 215). Others have used these signs as vehicles for exploring broader issues pertaining to the processes of collecting, preserving, and archiving (Cianci and Schutt 2014; Roberts and Carletti 2012).
