One good ad: The ghostly signs of Detroit’s past

They won’t give you a jump scare, but Detroit’s ghost signs have an eerie quality nonetheless.

Amelia Benavides-Colón, a Detroit Documenter, featured some of these faded advertisements painted on the side of buildings for a recent article in the Detroit Free Press . Detroit — with its old building stock, much of it vacant and neglected — is ripe for ghost signs. Benavides-Colón, with the help of readers, documented nearly 50 signs in and around Detroit.

Ghost signs help (literally) paint a fuller picture of the city’s history. Most of them date back decades and give us a glimpse of what the street might have looked like.

These ghostly echoes remain for a few well-known Detroit businesses, like Vernors and Faygo. But the majority are for long defunct businesses or organizations — a department store, a chocolate factory, an evaporated milk brand. Some have been memorialized and preserved with new murals cleverly incorporating the old ads.

One ad dating back more than 100 years for a tire company featuring racist caricatures was recently uncovered after a demolition . No word on whether the ad will be taken down, covered up or acknowledged in some way.

If you fancy yourself a ghost sign hunter, check out all the photos from Benavides-Colón’s article or a book about ghost signs written by former Freep journalist Robert Allen. And let us know if you spot any more around town!

Outlier Media · One good ad: The ghostly signs of Detroit’s past