[I suspect most people think of museums as either art collections like the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, or natural history repositories such as New York’s American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in D.C.
[Of course, there are many specialized museums, including art collections devoted to single artists or specific kinds of art, displays of certain types of technology, and exhibits of national or regional history. Some museums become well known and draw thousands or even hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.
[On the other hand, there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of museums that aren’t so prominent, are off the tourist paths, and may even seem a little . . . well, odd. Not far from where I live in Manhattan, for instance, are the National Museum of Mathematics and the Museum of Sex. Seriously, they’re actual museums.
[In Washington, a city of well over 170 museums, galleries, and historic sites—one of the densest museum environments in the world—there’s the International Spy Museum and National Postal Museum; the Army Medical Museum used to be in the District but relocated to suburban Silver Spring, Maryland, and changed its name to the National Museum of Health and Medicine.
[There used to be the Bead Museum (yes, beads!; closed in 2008), the National Gallery of Caricature and Cartoon Art (closed in 1997; collections now at the Library of Congress), the National Museum of Crime & Punishment (closed in 2015), the National Pinball Museum (closed in 2011), and the Newseum (about journalism and dedicated to the First Amendment; closed in 2019; currently seeking new location).
[In New York City. with over 260 museums, there’s the Lower East Side Tenement Museum, the Museum of Illusions (Chelsea in Manhattan), the Museum of Ice Cream (SoHo in Manhattan), the Museum of Interesting Things (East Village in Manhattan), and the Brooklyn Seltzer Museum (Cypress Hills).
[Back until 1972, the Ripley's Believe It or Not! Odditorium was in Times Square (it had a two-headed goat!); a new Ripley space, the Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Times Square, opened, but didn’t survive the pandemic and closed in 2021. The K.B.G. Espionage Museum in Manhattan’s Chelsea also didn’t make it after the pandemic, closing in 2020.
[Last week I learned that there are museums of signage. Who knew? I discovered that little factoid when I watched the evening news a few days ago and saw a report about the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio.
[The English word ‘sign’ has a several meanings. For the purpose of this post, I’m going to restrict the use to a few specific senses, principally any kind of visual graphics created to display information to a particular audience. This would customarily be a signboard, a device used to identify or advertise a product, event, premises, or property.
[Variations on this definition include information signs that present notices that instruct, advise, inform, or warn people; traffic signs that instruct drivers, such as stop signs, speed limit signs, cross walk signs, and so on; commercial signage, including flashing signs, such as on retail stores, factories, or theaters, and other establishments.
[Signs such as these are ubiquitous and have been around since the establishment of the written word, and even before that, with the information being communicated symbolically, like the three gold balls of the pawnbroker or the colored spiral of the barber pole.
[When I went to check out ASM, I found an earlier report from late last year about another collection of signs right her in New York City, the New York Sign Museum in Brooklyn. I live in Manhattan, across the river from Brooklyn, and never even heard of it!
[So, here are the two reports on sign museums, just because I find their existence a curiosity. See of you find them so, too.]
“NOSTALGIA AND
NEON: SIGN MUSEUM IN BROOKLYN
by Joelle Garguilo
[The earlier report on a sign museum, which I obviously hadn’t seen, aired on Eyewitness News on ABC 7 New York (WABC-TV, Channel 7 in New York City) on 29 October 2025. (The transcript of the report includes a video clip.)]
NEW YORK (WABC) – If you’re looking for a good sign, this is it!
In a city like New York, history is all around us, even where you’d least expect it – like the thousands of signs you’ll pass while strolling down city streets.
The New York Sign Museum in Brooklyn is working to preserve the unseen history behind vintage signage.
The museum is home to more than 200 rescued signs, advertising everything from restaurants and bars to barber shops and tailors.
David Barnett and Mac Pohanka are on a mission to ensure these pieces of New York City history don’t end up in the trash.
“You sort of take things for granted, especially with New York City signage,” Barnett said. “The signs have stories to tell. They’re New York stories. That’s why I think it’s so important to save this stuff.”
Their passion led them to the building in East New York where Barnett and Pohanka began the museum.
“For us, there’s so much craft, there’s so many stories,” Barnett said.
“I mean, talk about a sign with stories. Right? Cops and, the mob bosses would have allegedly, would have, like, lunches there,” Barnett described the history of one restaurant sign.
The museum also offers tours where visitors can learn how vintage signs reflect the city that once was.
“This is the Starlite Deli sign from Times Square. This was like a local institution. An older couple came on the tour, and they came up and said, we’re the owners of Starlite Deli. They said, you know, it was it was so meaningful for them to see the sign here and to see it preserved,” Barnett said.
For Barnett, the work is rooted in a family tradition he didn’t even know existed until recently.
“My great-grandfather was a sign painter in New York,” Barnett said. “I think the signs represent New Yorkers and they represent that part of us. The signs have stories to tell, they’re New York stories. And, they are our stories to tell, so that’s why I think it’s so important to save this stuff, because when we lose that, we lose a part of who we are.
[The New York Sign Museum is located in East New York at 2465 Atlantic Avenue, Brooklyn, NY 11207; its phone number is (646) 450-0621 and its e-mail address is nysignmuseum@gmail.com.
[Joelle Garguilo is an Emmy Award-winning entertainment reporter for WABC. A native New Yorker, she began her career in broadcast television 15 years ago at NBC, interviewing hundreds of stars of the screen and stage including Oprah Winfrey, Tom Cruise, George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Denzel Washington, Timothee Chalamet, Julia Roberts, Tony Bennett, Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenoweth, among others.
[Throughout her tenure, she held multiple roles across the network. Most recently, she worked as an on-air entertainment and features reporter for New York Live correspondent for E! News while contributing at the Today Show with Hoda & Jenna.
[Garguilo’s talents have earned her two Emmy Awards, one for the magazine program New York Live: Home for the Holidays and a second for Outstanding Entertainment: Program Features/Segment for New York Live Features/Segments.]
* *
* *
“CINCINNATI MUSEUM
CELEBRATES THE HISTORY
by Tony Dokoupil
[The CBS Evening News report on the American Sign Museum ran on 15 January 2026; I saw it on WCBS (Channel 2 in New York City). Part of Tony Dokoupil’s “Live from America Tour,” the new anchor’s two-week round of live broadcasts in, aside from Cincinnati, cities like Miami, Dallas, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Denver, Detroit, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. (The report’s transcript is accompanied by a video.)]
Cincinnati — All his life, Tod Swormstedt has been fascinated, not necessarily by American small businesses, but by their signs, which announce to all the world — or at least the folks on Main Street — "we're here."
That interest prompted Swormstedt in 1999 to found the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati.
The museum is a collection of more than a century of entrepreneurship and ambition. A few of the businesses are still around, but the vast majority are not.
"To me, it's all about small business, the heart of America," Swormstedt told CBS News.
The museum says it has more than 800 signs, 1,500 photographs, 175 pieces of artwork and 300 tools that celebrate American signage.
It's a reminder of the moxie it has always taken to start something new, and the good fortune when it lasts.
[The slang word ‘moxie’ is curious, both in its meaning and its derivation. It’s almost archaic, seldom used today and largely regional in application, and thus no longer widely understood. It means ‘courageous spirit,’ ‘determination,’ or ‘perseverance,’ among other things. I have an idea why Tony Dokoupil chose it in this instance, but the explanation is too extensive for this space, so I’m going to postpone it until the afterword to this post.]
"The memory of the business is alive and well here through their signs," Swormstedt said.
Around one last corner, we found Tom Wartman and Bing Reising, professional benders — as the craft of neon sign-making is known — who created a new American sign for a classic American company, "CBS Evening News."
It's a reminder of the moxie it has always taken to start something new, and the good fortune when it lasts.
"The memory of the business is alive and well here through their signs," Swormstedt said.
Around one last corner, we found Tom Wartman and Bing Reising, professional benders — as the craft of neon sign-making is known — who created a new American sign for a classic American company, "CBS Evening News."
[The noun ‘moxie’ originated from Moxie Nerve Food, a patent medicine produced in Massachusetts around 1876 “that can recover brain and nervous exhaustion; loss of manhood, imbecility and helplessness” (Frederic G. Cassidy,“The Etymology of Moxie,” Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America, No. 16 [1995], 208-211).
[The name of the tonic comes from a word that appears in Maine, where the drink’s creator was born, in lake and river names, such as Moxie Falls, and in the local name of a plant, the moxie-plum. One proposed etymology for the word is an Abenaki word meaning ‘dark water’; Abenaki is an Algonquian language of Quebec and northern New England. Another suggested origin is that its origin is an Algonquian root maski-, meaning ‘herbal infusion.’
[The tonic’s manufacturers added soda water to the concoction in 1885, transforming it into a carbonated beverage. Later, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 banned unproven health claims, forcing the company to remove “Nerve Food” from its name and drop advertisements claiming it could cure ailments.
[By the 1920s, Moxie became the most popular soda in America. During the Great Depression (1929-39), however, Moxie started to lose market share to Coca-Cola and other national soft drink brands and by the late 1940s, Moxie was largely a regional favorite in New England.
[In 2005, Moxie was named the official state soft drink of Maine, and in 2018, the beverage was bought by Coca-Cola. When I was a preteen, in the mid- and late ’50s, I went to summer camp in Maine, and I had my first taste of Moxie there--and my last! I didn't like it at all—it tasted bitter and mediciny—and never tried it again.
[The American Sign Museum is in the Camp Washington neighborhood of Cincinnati at 1330 Monmouth Avenue. The phone number is (513) 541-6366 and the e-mail address is info@americansignmuseum.org.
[Tony Dokoupil is the
anchor of the new CBS Evening News
with Tony Dokoupil. He previously
served as co-host of CBS Mornings and anchored The Uplift, a
weekly series spotlighting positive and inspiring stories for CBS News 24/7.]
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