Shadows of a Forgotten World

England's ghost signs, or fading brick ads, are the most famous and numerous. There is a website Ghostsigns dedicated to them (above all in England, but also around the world) and on Facebook there are many groups dedicated to these old signs. Suprisingly I didn't come across that many during my trip, but here are a few. Manchester Leeds York London Oxford (faux ghost sign, advertsing a bar)

"Wychód" - Polish archaism meaning "exit" ("Wyjście" in modern usage) Found in a corridor of a building that from the 1820s housed a hotel and restaurant-winery The hand points in the direction of the front entrance, from an inner courtyard Another theory is that the sign reads "wychodek" and points to an outhouse. However, I'm not entirely convinced as there is a line coming down just right of the letter "D" and the hand would not be centered if there were still two more letters at the end of the word.

The ghost sign on Lesia Ukrayinka Theater was recently liberated: SIECZKARNIE  KULTYWATORY MŁOCARNIE  KIERATY CHAFF-CUTTERS TILLERS THRESHERS HORSE MILLS It seems at some point this space sold farming machinery, though I haven't been able to find any details about this so uncertain when. These signs look different than the ones found on this old photograph of the building. The original post about this ghost sign can be found here . 

I recently came across this old photo from 1930 with a hand-painted sign.  The remnants of these old signs are still visible today. Lwów 1930 Głęboka 12 Lviv 2016 12 Hlyboka St.

These bilingual German and Czech street signs (some include descriptive house numbers) date from before WWI, likely before 1892 when the Czech-controlled City Hall decided to replace the city's bilingual street signs with exclusively Czech ones. 

Vinné sklepy a vinárna "Austria" Weinkellereien u. Weinzimer (Wine cellars and wine bar)

On Lviv's ghost signs from the book "The House with a Stained Glass Window" (by Żanna Słoniowska, 2015), which takes place in the early 1990s: I always tried to read the city like a book, but it turned out that he knows the alphabet. Near the facade of a building, from which recently the plaster had crumbled, he said:      "It's Yiddish: "coffee, tea, milk." Every spring Lviv sheds, uncovering on the facades letters from different alphabets. The current government treats this phenomena as a dangerous disease. Something like a rash. The symptoms, overcome in one place, then always appear in many other places. But homegrown doctors are confident in their skills and their chosen therapy."     "And nothing works out for them?"     "So far no. But this...won't last long. For me the stained glass window in your staircase is the last cultural membrane of the city. If it cracks, nothing can save it."     "The fall of Rom...

Mikolasch Passage was a glass-covered shopping arcade, which housed two cinemas, restaurants, cafes, and shops. The passage was built between 1898 and 1900. One entrance was from Kopernyka Street, through the entrance of Piotr Mikolasch's famous pharmacy. (In 1853 in Piotr Mikolasch's pharmacy, Jogann Zeh and Ignacy Lukasiewicz invented the first kerosene lamp. In 1892 the building on Kopernyka 1 was built for the new pharmacy by Karol Mikolasch, the son of Piotr.) The passage was destroyed by bombing in June 1941. Entrance from Kopernyka Street Inside Plan The ruins Ghost sign - looks like the middle of the word "Mikolascha"

Here's a lovely old photo of a shopfront in Lviv. The shop sold various kinds of hats. "Czapek" means "hat" in Polish. I've posted other old photos of Lviv with hand-painted advertisements, Part I  and Part II One of my favorite ghost signs visible in Lviv today is from another hat shop, pictured below. (I've posted these before, here and here .)

I found a few Polish-language ghost signs in the corridor of a residential building in Lviv's center. I haven't been able to decipher them, but during the interwar period this building housed a oil industry union, an union of petroleum products, an advertising agency, an antiquarian shop, and a sheet music shop - so possibly the signs are leftover from one or more of these establishments.

Inside of Les Kurbas Theater in Lviv is a ghost sign in French. The building was built in 1909 and originally functioned as a variety theater. The sign dates from the first era (1909-1918), or possibly from the interwar period since I see "Polonia" written there (though seems that during the interwar period only a cinema functioned).

A ghost sign on a former bookstore called Nowości, which existed in the interwar period. Today the space houses a small store selling art and office supplies, among other things. "Prenumerata czasopism ... zagranicznych" (Magazine subscription ... foreign) Here's a listing of the bookstore in a directory from 1939:

An old hand-painted sign Gothenburg's Sandwich Shop Fresh butter Fresh eggs