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Everyone knows one of the greatest joys of the holiday season is tearing through that wrapping paper. Until you start making amazingly intricate, personalized, wrapping paper yourself, that is!
Why Hand-Stamp Your Wrapping Paper? It’s easy! Do you have a hand? Can it hold a stamp? Can it apply pressure to a flat surface, while holding said stamp? You are officially qualified for this project.
Styrofoam hammer signage created by Stanley Wisniewolski in the 1980s. It still hangs over Crest Hardware on Metropolitan Avenue.
Partners & Spade is currently displaying hunks of Williamsburg history at its space on Great Jones Street. “The Vanishing Icons of Metropolitan Avenue: A History of Williamsburg’s Handmade Shop Signs from the 1980s,” curated by Karen Hudes, features three-dimensional signs that were once ubiquitous along Grand Street and Graham and Metropolitan Avenues. Hanging from the ceiling are cartoonish Styrofoam sculptures of an apple, a barber pole, a water tower, a cow’s head, and a phallic cigar with a pack of cigarettes.
Stanley Wisniewolski concocted the emblems as part of a community revitalization project spearheaded by St. Nick’s Neighborhood Preservation Corporation, where he worked as the resident graphic designer. Over seventy-five of the hand-carved and hand-painted signs had adorned local shops in the 1980s, bringing color and whimsy to the somewhat desolate area. Today, only two signs survive in their original element: a well-maintained hammer over Crest Hardware and a weathered Italian chef holding a pizza over Tony’s Pizza. Fortunately, Hudes has retrieved from the municipal archives a trove of color photographs showing the signs as they appeared in the 1980s, among them a camera over Metro Photo, a ketchup bottle over Thriftway Discount Center, a skeleton key over The Penny Saver, and a mortar and pestle over Napolitano Pharmacy. The exhibition originated at the City Reliquary, in Williamsburg, last spring and can be seen at Partners & Spade through October 31.
A New York tri-system developed for the founder of Dr. Jekyll and Hyde restaurants.
Greenpoint-based City Aquarium is a twelve-year-old company that imagines, builds, designs, and maintains unique custom-made aquariums. Many of their clients are billionaires, hotels, showrooms, and municipal aquariums. To name a few examples, a 1,200 gallon, two-sided viewing tank sitting in one of Honda’s showrooms in New York City was developed and is serviced by City Aquarium each week.
The 30-foot-tall cylindrical aquarium of Dream Hotel, also in the city, was built by the company. “Several of my clients have asked me not to reveal their identities,” founder Justin Muir confides. As for the ones he is allowed to mention, some include the royal family of Kuwait, artist Tony Ourseler, entrepreneur Alan Wilzig, and Yankees baseball player C. C. Sabathia.