As a kid growing up in NYC I was always fascinated with the local businesses, industries and utilities. We didn’t have big industrial factories in Greenwhich Village per se, but we had Soho in the 70s and early 80s and that was plenty. Broadway and areas around the Bowery housed plenty of old world garment factories, restaurant supply stores, pasta makers, spool manufacturers, widget gurus, and the typography that glued it all together was off the hook! It was an era of slab serifs and fat fonts, to say the least. Stencils, metal smithed numbers, and gritty paint filled the streets and storefronts of my childhood in an abundance I’ve yet to encounter again, but I’m always on the hunt for more of it. In my travels today, I sometimes happen upon typographic remnants and relics of that great time hidden underfoot and overhead. Shared, below are some of those “working types” we stumble across and sometimes don’t even notice or take for granted. Here’s to all those hard working types in our lives.
