The average New Yorker may have a vast appreciation for the city’s history, but outside of conversation, very few would set out to rescue the city’s artifacts.
One shop, Urban Archaeology in Tribeca, sells pendant lights from the old JFK airport, which at one time was called Idlewild Airport, for $750 as well as chandeliers from Roseland Ballroom for $5,500.
“It’s great to not lose parts of our past,” Gil Shapiro, the founder of Urban Archaeology, told the New York Post. “It really pisses me off when people don’t care about history.”
One couple based in Chelsea, Rolan and Irene Shnayder, purchased their condominium in 2017 in part because it had a 1907 marble-laced fireplace in the living room that was salvaged from the Plaza Hotel.
“It was a really sentimental piece for us,” Mrs. Shnayder told The Post.
The previous owner of The Shnayders unit purchased the historic fireplace through Olde Good Things, an antiques company, which salvages the fireplace during the Plaza’s renovation in 2005.
Mrs. Shnayder said that she and her husband “painted the wall [behind the piece] black, to make the white mantel really pop.”
Mrs. Shnayder said that her husband passed away several weeks ago from pancreatic cancer and that before his death, they would attend various formal events at the Plaza hotel.
53-year-old Scott Ewalt, who is a DJ, told the Post that he starting collecting Signage in Times Square during the early ’90s, while Rudy Giuliani was New York’s mayor.
“I started collecting because I was rescuing a part of culture that was disappearing,” Mr. Ewalt told The Post.
Mr. Ewalt told The Post that in the 90s, he purchased signage from two Times Square theaters for $500 each.
“I started asking all the adult businesses [for their signs],” Mr. Ewalt said. “I particularly love anything that’s hand-painted.”
“I like things that have led a life already, more than things that are brand new,” he said.
Another man, Joe Jeffreys, a theater studies professor at NYU, said that he purchased a sign by a nightclub on E. 4th Street between Bowery and Second Ave.
“I knew that [sign] had to be in my life,” Mr. Jeffreys told The Post. “I offered the guy [taking it down] $100 or something and walked it home.”
Mr. Jeffreys said that the purchase was the start of a lifelong collection.
“It resonates, it has an aura,” Mr. Jeffreys said.
He said that he likes to light up the fluorescent sign, which says Club 82, as often as he can.
“I kind of use it as a night light,” Mr. Jeffreys said. “It is a beacon to me.”
