Everywhere a Sign: 1912

February 23, 1912. "Three-ton electric sign blown into Broadway." Our second look at the toppled sign in front of a railroad ticket office and Hepner's Hair Emporium. From the New York Times account the 100 mph gale: "An electric sign, 100 by 200 feet, on the roof of the Kohn Building, just south of the Hotel Knickerbocker, caught one of the worst puffs of the big wind and toppled over into Times Square. A policeman, who had just darted into the store on the ground floor to warn those within that the sign was coming down, barely escaped it as it fell. The sign, weighing nearly two tons, crashed over into the street, still clasped hinge-like to its moorings at the bent base, while the top, crumbling into the street, shattered to bits a large plateglass window in the Lehigh Valley Railroad's office on the ground floor." George Grantham Bain Collection. View full size.