Wanted: an explanation of the orgins of a downtown ghost sign.
Downtown Greensboro is filled with "ghost signs." These are advertisements on buildings for businesses that departed ages ago.
Two examples are Silver's dime store, which must have closed 50 or 60 years ago. Yet, the store's sign stands out on the side of its former building at the southwest corner of South Elm and Washington streets.
Across the street, on the Guilford Building, the name Greensboro Bank & Loan Co. remains etched across two sides.
In 1933, the bank went bust during the Great Depression. Subsequent banks in the building's lobby covered up the old sign. Those banks later disappeared in mergers. When the current owners started restoring the building, they exposed the old sign.
The story behind ghost signs are easily explained. An old timer is usually around who remembers the business or knew of it.
But a sign that poses a mystery has been uncovered above the entrance at 356 S. Elm St. It says "tires, batteries."
For nearly 79 years, starting in 1926, 356 and 358 S. Elm combined to form Blumenthal's, a landmark downtown stores that specialized in jeans and work clothes. Blumenthal's closed in late 2005 and moved to Price Place Shopping Center on West Market Street.
The Schwarz family of Randolph County is transforming the block that included Blumenthal's with new and renovated structures. A rehab taking taking place at 356 uncovered the auto products sign.
Bob Blumenthal, son of Blumenthal's founder, Abe Blumenthal, who died in 1993, saw the old sign the other day and was baffled.
"As far as I know we never sold tires and batteries," he says.
He had heard a blacksmith shop may have once been in part of the store building, but nothing that pertained to autos.
A random search of old city directories yielded no clues. Before Blumenthal's, a tailor shop and Wright's Clothing Store, later moving to the 200 block of South Elm, occupied 356. Before that, West's Place, an ice cream parlor, was there, and as far back as 1913the site was a dry goods store operated by Jacob Samet.
Todd Schwarz, who belongs to the family developing he block, could not be reached for comment about whether a title search of the Blumenthal property turned up an auto parts store there.
If anyone has any information that would help make the sign less ghostly, please let us know.
