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I was stalking up 33rd Street in Astoria, on my way from a nutritious Whopper at Burger King to my biweekly penitence at the Greater Astoria Historical Society when I spotted this marvelously bricked building at 28-25. They didn’t settle for the usual Flemish bond here. Probably everything you see here has an architectural term attached to it, but I’ll just say I liked the ached brick over the doorway, the seemingly random bricking at the entrance, and the occasional brick that juts out of the side walls. I’ve been partial to brick facing for some time.

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There’s also this fallout shelter sign, from the 1950s when we thought we would be safe from atomic attack. When the blast finally hits, we’ll mercifully be vaporized in a split second; what a way to go… This specimen, one of hundred remaining ones around town, is very well preserved. You can see that they included a “capacity” blank for building owners to fill in.

These signs came in two sizes, with a much-harder to find larger version, which will turn up in this space in due time.


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  1. This is either the work of a creative genius or Lucy and Ethel (but you can argue that L&E were creative geniuses in their own wacky way). Whatever, it’s kind of fabulous. I even like the little window above the Fallout sign that has the tiny brick arch above it reflecting the larger arch to its left.

    Thank you for sharing this!