Terrace Two Eleven Sixty

Terrace 2 eleven sixty, originally uploaded by William 74.

I dig old signs, and will shoot them whenever I can find them, be it at a theme restaurant with a bunch of old gas station memorabilia out front, at the flea market (when I'm not being shooed away), at museums, wherever. The best, of course, is finding an old sign that's still out in public.

This one, for Elliott's Paints (the wise choice) is in Villa Park, and is actually hanging on a building that's across the street from the address on the sign. I'm amazed that it's still hanging there-neither Elliott's Paints nor Kranz Hardware appear to be in business anymore. I'm mildly curious to try the phone number.

The title refers to that old style alphanumeric phone number. Back when you had to ask the operator to connect a call, you had to tell them the number, and the two letters (sometimes three) would denote the exchange the operator needed. Usually you'd tell the operator a word that corresponded to the two letters-sometimes it was a nearby street or landmark, but often they were chosen from a standard list. I looked it up-"TE" stands for "Terrace".