@thisismyglasgow@UndisScot I love the tiles in the tenements. It is funny to observe that they frequently become sparser/less ornate and one assumes less expensive the further you get from the main entrance though..
Angelo Brocato. Ursulines St French Quarter. Ice cream shop here 1921 - 1981.
Cigars & Tobacco. Camp Street, Central Business District. Probably for Lannis Bros Cigars, here c. 1889 - 1905.
J. Disimone’s Restaurant. Carondelet Street, Uptown. The “597” was the address before 1895 renumbering.
4)“For Restful Sleep”. Broad, Mid-City. Sandman logo of Crescent Bed factory here 1910-1961. @noladon #NOLA#NewOrleans#GhostSigns#Tiles#TilesTuesday
Well, these all are a form of commercial advertising from the time. Meant to be eye catching - but in a pleasant rather than annoying way, and clearly taking pride in work.
@monkeyben@jvseem That question has been raised a few times. I think they were were mostly made after the arsenic green had been phased out in the mid-1860s. However, I've not had the guts to test this by licking a few broken tiles! 🙂
@thisismyglasgow@monkeyben@jvseem my niece used to live up a close in Craigton which had similar tiles and someone got them tested and found there was no arsenic
For A Project™, I need to learn about the historical origins of #bitmap#fonts. Highly doubt these were first created on computers; where in the world have rectangular #tiles or #bricks carried a textual message? (The tiled signs in the #NYC subway are #mosaics, not based on a grid.) Where did bitmap fonts really start?
Does anyone know the story behind these tiles about Alice? I run into different ones from time to time on walls around the Southside of Glasgow, mostly in the vicinity of Queen's Park.
They're the work of an artist called Oktavia Schreiner, and aim to blend stories of a fictional character (Alice) with real locations. There are at least two more tiles I haven't found yet.
There are few things which beats a wally close for making a great first impression. This one is in the Hyndland area of Glasgow. For those who don't know, a wally close is the communal entrance to a tenement which is lined with tiles, and often beautifully crafted ones.
@avirr We had our share of tenements like thst too, but there werr also some extremely upmarket ones, too. Incidently, the tenements of places like New York were probably inspired by the tenements of places like Glasgow - and quite a few even used the same sources of Scottish sandstone. 🙂
I love these tile panels which you occasionally find in tenement closes. They're not as common as the individual decorative tiles or borders, but there are still quite a few around. This one comes from a block of tenements in the Cathcart area of Glasgow.
@thisismyglasgow So many of the tiles you post are the same color scheme: that beautiful deep green and the smoldering orange. Is there a story behind that? Are the pigments local perhaps?
@sbourne Yes, that deep emerald green was a very popular colour for tiles in Glasgow, but I don't know why. They tiles weren't necessarily made locally, so it's not just a local pigment. I'll need to do some digging to see if I can come up wiyh an answer. 👍🙂
There are some things I can't seem to resist photographing each time I pass. These rather amazing tiles on Alexandra Parade in Glasgow are one of them.