Change Log

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The signs, as AI reproductions. Tap one for its page, photos of the originals and the record.

Newest first. Every change to this file gets a line here.

The sighting that started this file (22 Oct): the laundromat at 8015 20th Avenue in Bensonhurst, where Vlad read the signs off the walls as a six year old in the early 1990s, is now on the Sightings map, the survivor list and the Timeline, marked as a memory. The angel he remembers matches BE AN ANGEL and the farmer matches HOWDY, NEIGHBOR (inferred).

Copyright renewals and the shop’s dates: no renewal found. A 1960 or 1961 registration had to be renewed in its 28th year (1988 or 1989). The Copyright Office’s online records cover every renewal filed from 1978 on, and searches for Laundesigns, Schorr Sign Service, Joseph Schorr and each sign title turned up none. So the sign copyrights most likely lapsed around 1989. City property records show Joseph Schorr kept 67-43 Myrtle Avenue until 1998, so the shop building stayed in the family decades past the last trade ads. The ads also date the move: 67-15 Myrtle Avenue from May 1961 to November 1962, 67-43 from June 1963. Queens phone and address directories for 1927 to 1980 exist only on microfilm at the New York Public Library.

Full resolution shop photo ordered: the 1980s tax photo of 67-43 Myrtle Avenue (Queens Block 3681, Lot 38, the one with the schorr sign service storefront sign) ordered from the NYC Municipal Archives. The online copy is a thumbnail; the full scan should make the lettering and window readable.

Roosevelt Avenue addresses: 70-12 Roosevelt Avenue (Schorr Sign Co., 1932) located. The lot no longer exists, which is why the address would not match a tax lot. City land records list only 70-02 to 70-06 on that block today (Queens Block 1302, between 70th Street and Broadway), but the 1940 tax photos include three lots that have since disappeared, 27 to 29. Lot 29, the corner, has 70-12 painted on its door. In 1940 it was Roosevelt Roofing and Sheet Metal Works, with a large figure sign on the roof. 68-05 Roosevelt Avenue (1937) falls on the north side between 68th and 69th Streets, now the site of a church built in 1971 (Block 1223, Lot 1). The city has no 1940 photo of the old lots there. A 1928 Percy Loomis Sperr photo at 69th Street and Roosevelt (NYPL) predates both Schorr addresses.

What became of the shop: Google Street View history for 67-43 Myrtle Avenue runs back to August 2007. In May 2012 the door is numbered 67-43 and the store is Four Star Final, selling remanufactured and new laser, copier, inkjet and ribbon cartridges, with Park’s Orange Tree fruit stand on the corner. Same store in August 2007. By 2024 it is a taekwondo school, with Evergreen Dental at 67-41 next door. No trace of the Schorr sign in any Street View year.

The 1971-72 display ad (22 Oct): the NYPL Milstein Division sent page 945 of the 1971-72 Queens Yellow Pages, the display ad the page 944 listing pointed to. Schorr Sign Service, 67-43 Myrtle Ave., HY 7-5252: Our staff of master designers, letterers and artists are ready to create imaginative signs for your every need. Added to Joseph Schorr and the Research Archive, cropped and as the full page.

HERE’S HOW reproduction redrawn: black hair, headband and shorts with the chevron flap, to match the poster.

More AI reproductions, a sign index and a logo: nine more digital recreations added beside their sources on the Sign Catalog: the blue framed THINKING OF YOU, ALWAYS, DON’T BE BASHFUL and THIS COULD BE YOU; the HERE’S HOW and DRY? posters, with the copy typed in from the Facebook photo and the unreadable small print left as blank lines; and the ad figures for YA BETTER WATCH OUT, SAVE YOUR MONEY (HAVE YOU SEEN THE REST OF MY GANG?), WE NEVER SLEEP (TIRED OF PAYING BILLS?) and the Uncle Sam mascot. Each is labeled as an AI reproduction, not the original artwork. The catalog now opens with a clickable index of every title, and every image opens full size in a new tab. A clean Laundesigns logo, redrawn from the maker line on the blue series, is now in the media library with a transparent background in black, white and sign blue, with and without the N.Y.C. line.

AI reproductions, photo credits and thank yous: the Sign Catalog now shows eight faithful digital recreations beside the photographs they were made from: BE AN ANGEL, DID YOU SAY CHANGE?, DON’T DYE HERE, WE’RE SORRY, THIS COULD BE YOU, HOWDY, NEIGHBOR, WE’RE NOT RESPONSIBLE and CAREFUL NOW! Each is labeled as an AI reproduction and not the original artwork; they are a working aid until a vector artist redraws the set. The Rob’s Stop ‘N’ Wash photos are now credited to the Museum of Laundry blog post of 1 January 2008, the sharpest copies found. Rob’s is still open at 54 Fifth Avenue under its original name. Thank you notes and research notices went to the photographers, bloggers, archives, historical societies, trade publications and sign museums whose work is cited in this file. A weekly sweep for new mentions of the signs and this project starts 27 October 2026.

LAUNDROMAT storefront signs in the Snorri Bros. book: Vlad’s copy of Laundromat (powerHouse Books, 2013) pictures nine storefronts with the porthole LAUNDROMAT sign, all in Brooklyn: 5821 Fifth Avenue, 6108 Fifth Avenue, 6217 Fifth Avenue, 1189 Bedford Avenue, 3144 Fulton Street, 671 Franklin Avenue, 342 Waverly Avenue (the sign itself carries the number 353), 471 Fifth Avenue and 269 13th Street. Three are new to the file: 6108 and 6217 Fifth Avenue and 1189 Bedford Avenue. The city’s 1980s tax photos of the new three show no LAUNDROMAT panel: an exterminator at 6108, a Chinese hand laundry at 6217, and a different sign at 1189. 353 Waverly was a COIN LAUNDRY with a Coca-Cola sign. With the earlier checks, that makes ten of these storefronts photographed in the mid 1980s without the panel. The one 1980s LAUNDROMAT sign found so far is still 5921 Fourth Avenue, which is not in the book. Property records for all of them, plus 729 Meeker Avenue, 8015 20th Avenue and 5921 Fourth Avenue, were cross-checked for owners in common. None turned up beyond the one already known between 8015 20th Avenue and 5921 Fourth Avenue. New clue in the book’s photos: on the 1189 Bedford sign, each of the three painted washers carries a small WASCOMAT nameplate, and the 342 Waverly sign has similar plates. Wascomat was the brand of Swedish coin washers that Bernard Milch brought to New York; the first all-Wascomat laundromat opened in Manhattan in 1960. A reader comment on Forgotten NY also remembers 1970s laundromat signs painted with three washers of different sizes and colors, carrying the Wascomat or Norge logo. Inferred, not proven: the porthole sign may be a design that came with Wascomat equipment.

Evening, 22 October 2026: correction: Schorr Sign Co. is no longer called the family’s firm. The 1937 manufacturers directory already names Lupie Wechsler as its proprietor, so the 1960 ad shows him running it for at least 24 years; who founded it is not documented. Added the 1950 census entry for Wechsler, a Romanian-born commercial sign painter living in Corona near Herbert Schorr, to People and Firms.

Later, 22 October 2026: the 1960 to 1961 Schorr Sign Co. proprietor is now named, L. Wechsler, as printed in the ad. The Research Archive now shows the three full directory pages next to the crops, with thanks to the NYPL reference staff. The Timeline and People and Firms note that by 1971 the two brothers, Joseph and Herbert, ran separate Schorr sign shops listed one line apart. Other Vintage Laundry Signs gains a section on Stry-Lenkoff dry cleaner tags, and The Artist Question shows a town “-opoly” game for comparison, marked as probably unrelated.

22 October 2026: the New York Public Library’s Milstein Division sent the Schorr pages from three Queens Yellow Pages. 1960 to 1961: the Schorr Sign Co. name, still advertising at 69-14 Roosevelt Avenue, Woodside, under L. Wechsler. 1965 to 1966: a Schorr Sign Service ad at 67-43 Myrtle offering plastic signs, paper posters, silk screen and show cards. 1971 to 1972: Herbert Schorr’s own sign studio in Elmhurst, and Schorr Signs Service still on Myrtle with a display ad on page 945, now requested. Added to the Timeline, People and Firms, Joseph Schorr and the Research Archive.

Night, 21 October 2026: each sign now has its own page under the Sign Catalog, with its photos, sightings and, for the six March 1960 designs, the Catalog of Copyright Entries listing transcribed word for word beside the scan. New pages: Sightings Map (seven places, with the survivor list), Positively No Tinting or Dyeing (why coin laundries needed signs like these), Wanted and Press and Reuse. Claims are now tagged Documented or Inferred.

Evening, 21 October 2026: the HERE’S HOW and DRY reproductions are redone with the real instruction text from photographs of surviving signs: the Launderama washer operating instructions (20 lbs, 20 minute cycle; the .75 on the photographed sign looks like a later price sticker, so the reproduction shows .25, an inferred early 1960s price) and the drying instructions (5¢). One line of the washer note is hidden behind a railing in the photograph and is filled in as the obvious missing step; that line is inferred. The DRY figure now holds an empty canteen instead of a flask. The home page gets a short version of how this started.

Later, 21 October 2026: the Schorr addresses checked in the city’s 1940 and 1980s tax photos (1940s.nyc). 67-43 Myrtle Avenue, 1980s: a storefront sign reading schorr sign service, the first picture of the shop. 67-43 Myrtle, 1940: J. Sweeney, Housefurnishings, Devoe Paints, the family who sold the building to the Schorrs in 1963. 67-15 Myrtle: 1940 and 1980s photos show no Schorr sign. 102-08 Roosevelt Avenue (Schorr Sign Co., 1928): empty and to let in 1940, next to a shop called Sign-Craft; a different business in the 1980s. 37-16 103rd Street (the family home) and 144-27 76th Avenue (Joseph and Elsie in 1950): no sign shop visible. The 1932 and 1937 Roosevelt Avenue addresses could not be matched to tax lots. Images added to the Research Archive and the Joseph Schorr page.

21 October 2026: Sign Catalog audited against every sign photo in the file (session uploads, Vlad’s Downloads, the illustrated timeline, the survey folder in Drive). Added the blue versions of BE AN ANGEL, DON’T DYE HERE and WE’RE NOT RESPONSIBLE from the Alabama home laundry photo, and the Felton, Long Island City, Rensselaer and Trumansburg sighting photos under their titles. New detail: the blue WE’RE NOT RESPONSIBLE reads laundry where the yellow one reads property and articles. Yellow series captions now credit Rob’s Stop ‘N’ Wash; WE’RE SORRY now credits the Trumansburg Flickr photo.

Night, 20 October 2026: correction and a triangulation. The 1980s tax photo with the LAUNDRY sign is Block 6287 Lot 2, 8019 20th Avenue, two doors down (Vlad first matched it to 8015, then agreed it is 8019). The photo of 8015 itself (Lot 4) shows the storefront shut and blank, so in the mid 1980s there was no storefront sign there at all, and the laundromat may not have been operating. The 1980s photos of the other LAUNDROMAT-sign storefronts were checked: 269 13th Street, 471 Fifth Avenue, 671 Franklin Avenue, 3144 Fulton Street and 5821 Fifth Avenue show no LAUNDROMAT panel; the 137 Fifth Avenue and 729 Meeker Avenue photos do not show the storefront; 342 Waverly Avenue has no photo online. None of these buildings shares an owner with 8015 20th Avenue in the deed records. The 1988 buyers of 8015 also owned 5919 and 5921 Fourth Avenue in Sunset Park (1986 to 1991), and the 1980s photo of 5921 shows a laundromat with a LAUNDROMAT sign; 7122 Fort Hamilton Parkway (theirs 1990 to 1992) shows a dry cleaning store; 1278 Flatbush Avenue (1987 to 1988) shows a WASH sign in the frame.

Evening, 20 October 2026: debunk, found by Vlad. The city’s 1980s tax photo of 8015 20th Avenue shows a plain LAUNDRY sign over the store, not the red LAUNDROMAT storefront sign Vlad remembers from the 1990s. So that storefront sign went up after the 1980s photo, most likely after the April 1988 sale, and was not part of a 1960s package with the Laundesigns inside. The storefront sign thread now points at the late 1980s and 1990s operators. Correction: 20th Avenue Laundry, Inc. (1990) is registered at 8915 20th Avenue, a different address, and is not linked to this laundromat. The 1953 owner appears only as Leo Gershenhorn; no matching 1950 census entry was found.

Later, 20 October 2026: the Bensonhurst laundromat has a start date. The city Board of Standards and Appeals granted calendar no. 890-52-BZ on 17 March 1953, letting owner Leo Gershenhorn change 8015 20th Avenue from a store, formerly a bakery, to a self-service laundry with a one-family dwelling above (BSA Bulletin vol. 37 and 38, Internet Archive). The 1940 tax photo shows that bakery. The board’s description also fixes the location: east side of 20th Avenue, 60 feet north of 81st Street. So the laundromat was seven years old when the first Laundesigns were registered. The pre-1970 owners named in the 1970 deed sold a second Brooklyn property in 1972. A New York Times classified of 24 April 1960 mentions 8015 20th, Bklyn; text not yet read.

20 October 2026: the Bensonhurst laundromat from the origin story is 8015 20th Avenue (Brooklyn Block 6287, Lot 4), on 20th Avenue between 80th and 81st Streets, now Lucky 99 Laundromat. NYC property records show six deeds from 1970 to 2009, so the building changed hands half a dozen times while it stayed a laundromat. A 1988 filing names the business 20th Ave Launder Center. Owner names are left out because most are private individuals.

Late night, 19 October 2026: new page, Joseph Schorr: Biography and Family, covering Nathan, Rose and their five children with spouses, and stopping at that generation. A clearer 1950 census image, pulled from the National Archives, now shows Joseph’s name with his occupation. It also settles the open check from earlier tonight: the artist on line 27 is a neighbor, Joseph Rabuse, 60, born Austria. YA BETTER WATCH OUT caption corrected on the Research Archive: it is registered (K58994) and the figure holds a slingshot.

Night, 19 October 2026: new page, Research Archive. 53 images added and labeled by source: Laundesigns on laundromat walls (Brooklyn, Long Island City, Trumansburg, Rensselaer, Felton, Alabama, Philadelphia area), the separate LAUNDROMAT storefront sign thread, American Coin-Op ads and news 1961 to 1968, the 1960 copyright register, the 1928 directory, the 1950 census sheet, ACRIS records, Street View, and the clip art and greeting card comparisons. The 1998 deed image is held back because it names living buyers. New open check: line 27 of the 1950 census crop reads artist.

Evening, 19 October 2026: new page, Other Vintage Laundry Signs, starting with the Philco-Bendix clothes thief sign (ruled out as a Laundesign). Full text search of American Coin-Op shows Schorr Sign Service still listed in July 1967 and July 1968 at 67-43 Myrtle Avenue, and a 1961 phone number, PRospect 6-7100.

Later, 19 October 2026: size corrected. A tape measure in the Facebook Marketplace photo of the blue series puts a sign at about 18 inches wide by 48 inches tall (Vlad’s reading of the photo). This replaces the earlier estimate of 4 to 5 feet by 2 feet on the home page, FAQ and Sign Catalog. Reverse image search of the blue figures and the two Alabama posters found no exact matches.

19 October 2026: the origin story moved to its own post, A Grave Situation, with the Red Bull ad photo; the home page links to it. Open Questions updated: Jensen ads located 1962 to 1979 (art not yet viewable), Harry Sandler’s only known work is a 1970s watercolour, CSA Images followed up, storefront signs paused.

Later, 18 October 2026: added Order a Sign, a waiting list in case the signs get made again. Added the story of how the search started to the home page. Comments now show on every page. Open Questions rewritten as a ranked list.

18 October 2026

• Added a Report a Sign page with a form, a contact form on the home page, and comments on every page.
• Home page rewritten, with six sign photos, a section for people searching for vintage laundromat signs by the words printed on them, and a short FAQ.
• Copy edited across all pages to cut filler and list formatting.
• Catalog captions now name each photo’s source; the five trade ad captions link to the issue on the Internet Archive.
• Sign Catalog rebuilt as one entry per title with photos: 16 of 18 titles pictured, plus the Laundesigns maker line. TAKE IT EASY WITH THAT LOAD and EXTRACTING, ANYONE? still have no image.
• Every page links back to the home page.
• File created from investigation database version 10, with Catalog, Timeline, People and Firms, The Artist Question, Open Questions, Sources, Change Log and Discussion Log. Living relatives and private sellers are left out.

Corrections carried over from the database

• YA BETTER WATCH OUT is a registered title (K58994), not a new find.
• The 1950 census household is Joseph and Elsie; Nathan died in 1944.
• Maytag and Jensen are one seller.
• Tom Sawyer withdrawn as lead artist candidate.
• Coin-Op citations corrected from scan leaf numbers to printed page numbers.
• Detroit card size theory dropped: the signs are roughly 4 to 5 feet by 2, not letter size.