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The signs, as AI reproductions. Tap one for its page, photos of the originals and the record.
Only people who have died appear here, plus the firms. Living relatives are left out on purpose.
The Schorr family
The full year-by-year record and family tree is on Joseph Schorr: Biography and Family.
Joseph Isaac Schorr
Ran Schorr Sign Service in Glendale, Queens and registered the Laundesigns. Show card writer. A veteran, per his BIRLS record, though no enlistment record has been found. Died 15 April 2006 in Metuchen, New Jersey. Documented
Nathan Schorr
Sign painter, Joseph’s father. Died 1944. Documented
Herbert Schorr
Joseph’s brother, also a sign painter, with his own business in Queens by 1950. Died 1991 in Florida. Documented In 1971 to 1972 the Queens Yellow Pages list his own shop, Schorr Herbert Sign Studio, at 93-08 Corona Avenue, Elmhurst: plastic showcards, illuminated and not. Documented His listing sits one line above his brother’s Schorr Signs Service, which by then also sold plastic signs and show cards. Two Schorr sign shops in neighboring parts of Queens. Inferred
Harry D. Sandler
Joseph’s brother in law, a commercial artist at K Art Studios, 119 West 33rd Street, Manhattan, later a watercolourist in Florida. Died 2005. Documented. Whether he drew any of the sign figures is unknown, and none of his work has turned up to compare.
Firms in the story
Schorr Sign Service
67-15 Myrtle Avenue, then 67-43 from 1963, Glendale, Queens. Maker of the Laundesigns. Its 1965 to 1966 Yellow Pages ad offers plastic signs, paper posters, silk screen and show cards. Documented
Schorr Sign Co.
A Schorr Sign Co. on Roosevelt Avenue: 102-08 in 1928, 70-12 in 1932, 68-05 in 1937, when the state’s manufacturers directory names its proprietor as Lupie Wechsler. Who founded it, and whether the Schorr family ever ran it, is not documented. In the 1960 to 1961 Queens Yellow Pages the name is still advertising, at 69-14 Roosevelt Avenue, Woodside, still with L. Wechsler as proprietor: gold leaf window lettering, trucks, raised letters, cloth signs. Documented So Wechsler ran it for at least 24 years, 1937 to 1961, overlapping the years Nathan Schorr worked as a sign painter on his own account. Documented The 1950 census finds a Luper Wechsler (as indexed), 54, born in Romania, a commercial sign painter working on his own account, with his wife Pauline and two daughters, in an apartment on 41st Avenue in Corona, a block or two from Herbert Schorr’s home on 99th Street. Documented The street reading on the census sheet is uncertain. Inferred See the ad.
Harry Volk Jr. Art Studio
A clip art service in Pleasantville, New York. Its late 1950s cartoon sheets share the style. All 32 interior sheets from 1954 to 1963 on Bart Solenthaler’s Flickr were checked, and no sign figure is among them. The only named Volk artist, Tom Sawyer, drew in a realistic style.
Other clip art services
Multi-Ad, Stivers, Cobb Shinn and Underwood were all checked. No matching art.
Paula
A maker of humorous prints. A 1964 registration is signed T. Wilfono, probably Wilfong. No proven link to the signs.
Allan K. Jensen
Audubon, Iowa. Sold laundromat posters from 1961 to 1979. Earlier notes treated Maytag and Jensen as two competitors; they are the same seller. The one printed sample found, a sheepdog poster from 1968, is no copy of Schorr’s work.
Marlite
Maker of the hardboard the signs were screened on, per Schorr’s 1962 ads.
An open file on the Laundesigns of Schorr Sign Service, Glendale, Queens. Sign images are faithful digital recreations made from photos of the originals; each sign page links to the record. The recreations were generated with Grok, chosen after comparing image quality across several AI models.
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