The First of Many Signs (Vintage Signs)

I haven't been able to write for awhile due to a lack of Internet access. However, that brief yet bleak time in my life is now over and I am happy to be back and blogging.

This here city has quite a few awesome old signs and businesses and I recently decided that its not enough to just admire them in passing, especially since a few of them are in jeopardy of being taken down or painted over. For instance, one of the two giant spinning ice cream cones in this city (might I add they are both double-scoop cones, which I think is a rarity in both giant spinning cones and regular edible cones) was painted entirely black not too long ago. Who does that? Who in their right mind thinks a giant spinning all-black ice cream cone looks better than an original old one? A person who prefers a death cone over an ice cream cone, that's who. I could go on about this injustice, but that's not the point of this post. The point is someone needs to record these old jewels for posterity before its too late. So my task has begun:

Here's a sweet Peter Pan Pizza sign that currently sits above a laundromat. I'm not really sure if it is Peter Pan...it might just be a Swiss or German (or Swiss-German) reporter boy grabbing some lunch. Little do you know that his face is missing on the other side...
(After some online research I found that this was a sign for Der Ratzkeller Pizza, which sounds a little like Rats-Killer Pizza.)

I absolutely love this building, and not just because I love popcorn. I also love a good unsolved mystery. I stopped to peek through the windows of this store one day after we first moved in. Candy, suckers and other treats are sitting in barrels and on shelves waiting for the day some little kid will eat them...a day that will never come (scary music begin now). Everything is covered in dust and webs, like they haven't been touched in years...which makes sense, because they haven't. I was so intrigued I began asking around and found some helpful elderly locals to give me some history. Back when this area was more residential and less commercial, this little store was the hot spot for families and children in the summer and on weekends. It was close to the park and close to the theatres, a perfect stop for people en route to other destinations. It had all sorts of candies and sweets (the most popular being the penny candies) and seemed to be a thriving little business. One day, for no known reason, the owner locked the shop doors and never opened them again. Everything was (and still is) left exactly as it was that one evening. It happens to be in prime space now and many people have asked the owners if they would sell it, but they refuse. No price has even tempted them. Now I ask the question on everyone's minds: why? What happened in that store? What are they hiding? No one knows, and perhaps no one ever will.

(Note: I can't verify all the details. This is just what I've heard plus a little of what my imagination told me. Please, no one sue me. I'm not on to you, I swear!)

Just a close up of this neat-o sign. This store opened in 1932.