Upper East Side Shoe Repair Shops
(For names and locations, see the Neon Shoes set on Flickr)

I’m dealing with a lot extra-curricular crap at the moment, including heartbreak and a dead fridge, so I’m a bit behind on everything, including Project Neon posts.  I’ll try to catch up over the next few days.

First up: a couple of weekends ago I went on a photo walk on the Upper East Side. I was particularly hunting one of my favorite types of neon signs: shoe repair shop signs.

I know they’re probably off the shelf as often as custom made (and I usually vastly prefer custom neon), but there’s something so charming about the giant shoes, even when they’re anatomically imposible. I also love how New Yorkish they are — we need a lot of shoe repair with all the pavement pounding we do. 

John’s, (which I made a proper visit to last year) above, is probably my favorite for it’s colorful minimalism, but Sam’s is great, too, especially when you see it together with the other half, also featuring curly eses. The giant Andrade loafers are also excellent. So many great neon shoes, boots, heels, and more.

I know there are a jillion more of these signs, both on the Upper East Side and elsewhere.  I need to have more neon shoe walks to hunt down as many of these as I can find. Unfortunately as you can see above, many of them are behind bars by the time darkness sets it, so it may be next winter before I really get the photo set filled in properly.

…………….

Last night I bundled up, packed my binoculars, and subwayed over to Battery Park to see the comet. It was frigid, but the sunset was lovely, and I made the happy discovery that the Colgate Clock is back on over in Jersey. So an expedition there soon if I can work out the logistics. Or maybe I’ll wait until it’s a *little* bit warmer.

The Bridge Café is raising money to reopen post-sandy.

Nathan’s Famous at Coney Island is working to reopen, too. I really hope all their great neon will be up and running soon, too!

John Shoe Repair(On the Upper East Side on 67th Street between 2nd & 3rd Avenues) The cobblers of New York City are a wonder. Operating out of shoe-box sized shops, each packed with the detritus of a lifetime of repairing our worn-out footwear, the enable us to keep pounding the pavement in style. There must have once been so many more of them, in the era before sneakers and the rise of disposable fashions, but there are still a good number today. And a good number of them have neon signs, usually small skeleton signs hanging in the window like this one, but with a wide variety of shoe types from boots to high heels. When winter comes (these one-man operations (are there any women cobblers in New York?) tend to close early), I’d like to finally take a shoe-neon-only walk, and gather a whole poster’s worth of neon shoes. I dropped my shoes off this afternoon with John. I inadvertently wore through the heels (and nearly through the soles) last winter. I hope he can fix them. I’ll find out tomorrow. If he can, it will have been a bargain — $5! Half of his tiny shop was filled with a massive shoe lathe that looked like some kind of intricate contemporary sculpture. The other half, more assemblage, featured piles of hardened glue, scraps of leather, and bits and pieces of this and that, with assorted pliers and punchers and whatnot here and there. I would have been claustrophobic to spend too long there, but for a brief visit it was wonderfully quiet and private and soothing, all earthy browns and cozines, with the iconic pink and green shoe glowing softly out the window. Here is New York, alive and busily industrious. PS:  Happy birthday to my mom today! PPS:  Did I tell you?  I started a new project to explore New York by daylight:  apicnicineverypark.tumblr.com UPDATE:  Shoes look great! When I picked them up, John told me, I think, about his forthcoming trip to Athens (where he apparently hails from), where it is even hotter than it is here, though of course everyone leaves the city when it gets too hot, or goes swimming (communicated largely through miming breast stroke). He is very nice and an excellent cobbler and you should take your shoes there. Oh, and be prepared for the overwhelming smell of shoe polish when you open the door.
Pop-upView Separately

John Shoe Repair
(On the Upper East Side on 67th Street between 2nd & 3rd Avenues)

The cobblers of New York City are a wonder. Operating out of shoe-box sized shops, each packed with the detritus of a lifetime of repairing our worn-out footwear, the enable us to keep pounding the pavement in style. There must have once been so many more of them, in the era before sneakers and the rise of disposable fashions, but there are still a good number today. And a good number of them have neon signs, usually small skeleton signs hanging in the window like this one, but with a wide variety of shoe types from boots to high heels. When winter comes (these one-man operations (are there any women cobblers in New York?) tend to close early), I’d like to finally take a shoe-neon-only walk, and gather a whole poster’s worth of neon shoes.

I dropped my shoes off this afternoon with John. I inadvertently wore through the heels (and nearly through the soles) last winter. I hope he can fix them. I’ll find out tomorrow. If he can, it will have been a bargain — $5!

Half of his tiny shop was filled with a massive shoe lathe that looked like some kind of intricate contemporary sculpture. The other half, more assemblage, featured piles of hardened glue, scraps of leather, and bits and pieces of this and that, with assorted pliers and punchers and whatnot here and there. I would have been claustrophobic to spend too long there, but for a brief visit it was wonderfully quiet and private and soothing, all earthy browns and cozines, with the iconic pink and green shoe glowing softly out the window. Here is New York, alive and busily industrious.

PS:  Happy birthday to my mom today!

PPS:  Did I tell you?  I started a new project to explore New York by daylight:  apicnicineverypark.tumblr.com

UPDATE:  Shoes look great! When I picked them up, John told me, I think, about his forthcoming trip to Athens (where he apparently hails from), where it is even hotter than it is here, though of course everyone leaves the city when it gets too hot, or goes swimming (communicated largely through miming breast stroke). He is very nice and an excellent cobbler and you should take your shoes there. Oh, and be prepared for the overwhelming smell of shoe polish when you open the door.

RIP, Gonzalez y Gonzalez Neon(on Broadway between Houston & Bleecker)  I have a proper neon visit to tell you about later, and I’m going to aim for another one tonight, but in the mean time some news from the neonosphere: From the Merch Department:I’ve added some new things to the Project Neon shop at Etsy: cuff links, rings, and Neon Alphablocks. All feature details from photos I’ve taken for Project Neon. Excellent gifts for your typographically hip friends, your favorite New Yorkophiles, or yourself. I’m working on pendants as well, and am happy to consider special orders. If you have any questions, please let me know. From the Department of Mixed Emotions:I am pissed that apparently Chipotle lied to me when they said they weren’t taking over the former Gonzalez y Gonzalez space. It’s now listed on their website as a current location. I’m happy Gonzalez y Gonzalez is still going strong, but I’m really sad that while the sombrero made the move to the interior of their new smaller space on Mercer (the back half of their old block-through space), the neon apparently did not (look at the slideshow here). You can see a daytime view of the neon  in Google Street View (for now), but it was so wonderful and dynamic at night. A neon icon that will be missed. As always, I wonder what happened to the tubes? From the Finance Department:The New York Times has an interesting series of infographics about Kickstarter. Project Neon is in there somewhere! I wonder why Photography is such a small category, both by number of projects and amount per project. I’ve toyed with the idea of another Kickstarter to fund a better camera, a photo book, a trip to neonville, etc., but I just don’t think I can handle that amount of work again. I’ll have to figure out another way… From the Department of Personnel:An interview with neon artist Chris Bracey over at It’s Nice That. From the Department of Fixer-Uppers:I’m very excited to report that Circo’s Pastry Shop on Knickerbocker Avenue in Brooklyn is looking into fixing their beautiful neon sign. Does anyone reading this repair neon signs in New York City or know someone who does? I get a lot of requests for referrals, and wish I had a list of people interested in such work… I’m sure there were other things I meant to post, but I’ll have to catch up with them later. 
Pop-upView Separately

RIP, Gonzalez y Gonzalez Neon
(on Broadway between Houston & Bleecker)
 

I have a proper neon visit to tell you about later, and I’m going to aim for another one tonight, but in the mean time some news from the neonosphere:

From the Merch Department:
I’ve added some new things to the Project Neon shop at Etsy: cuff links, rings, and Neon Alphablocks. All feature details from photos I’ve taken for Project Neon. Excellent gifts for your typographically hip friends, your favorite New Yorkophiles, or yourself. I’m working on pendants as well, and am happy to consider special orders. If you have any questions, please let me know.

From the Department of Mixed Emotions:
I am pissed that apparently Chipotle lied to me when they said they weren’t taking over the former Gonzalez y Gonzalez space. It’s now listed on their website as a current location. I’m happy Gonzalez y Gonzalez is still going strong, but I’m really sad that while the sombrero made the move to the interior of their new smaller space on Mercer (the back half of their old block-through space), the neon apparently did not (look at the slideshow here). You can see a daytime view of the neon  in Google Street View (for now), but it was so wonderful and dynamic at night. A neon icon that will be missed. As always, I wonder what happened to the tubes?

From the Finance Department:
The New York Times has an interesting series of infographics about Kickstarter. Project Neon is in there somewhere! I wonder why Photography is such a small category, both by number of projects and amount per project. I’ve toyed with the idea of another Kickstarter to fund a better camera, a photo book, a trip to neonville, etc., but I just don’t think I can handle that amount of work again. I’ll have to figure out another way…

From the Department of Personnel:
An interview with neon artist Chris Bracey over at It’s Nice That.

From the Department of Fixer-Uppers:
I’m very excited to report that Circo’s Pastry Shop on Knickerbocker Avenue in Brooklyn is looking into fixing their beautiful neon sign. Does anyone reading this repair neon signs in New York City or know someone who does? I get a lot of requests for referrals, and wish I had a list of people interested in such work…

I’m sure there were other things I meant to post, but I’ll have to catch up with them later.