Shulman's Conservation Picture Framing, shabby though it might look, is proud enough of its long service to Sheepshead Bay that it puts "Est. 1931" in small letters on its worn, painted sign.
What makes the store truly interesting, though, is that it illustrates its craft in a surreal mural on the east side of its building. Some nice trompe l'oeil work depicting a room filled with portraits, a fireplace and a large curtained window. The mural has been there a long time, as the vines below attest. Too bad about the graffiti. In this case, I don't think it adds to the visual impact.
I enjoy painting the older buildings in Toronto --a lot of Second Empire etc.--and as I was working on a group of buildings on Queen Street I thought I would do a Google Street
ReplyDeleteView to see how the buildings were doing. To my shock the old business signs had disappeared, the businesses had disappeared, and the wonderful brick had been painted an atrocious black with some faux pediments added to the top of the buildings. It was only a couple of years that I had sketched these 140 year old buildings ! That is how fast changes happens here, and all of us interested in buildings and neighbourhoods don't have the good fortune to wait and hope we can enjoy the buildings forever. Now is the time to record them, photograph everything before the structures are bowled over by the Condos.