{"id":6502,"date":"2025-10-17T15:30:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T15:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/6502\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T15:30:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T15:30:09","slug":"step-inside-the-new-york-sign-museum-and-dozens-of-other-cool-places-for-free-at-open-house-new-york-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/6502\/","title":{"rendered":"Step inside the New York Sign Museum\u2014and dozens of other cool places\u2014for free at Open House New York this weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether we realize it or not,\u00a0signs not only help us New Yorkers navigate the city, they also tell us something about the place we call home. Our city’s signs are “bold and direct and loud but not screaming at you,” explains Seamus\u00a0Seery, collections manager\u00a0for the New York Sign Museum at Noble Signs. Bold and direct but not (usually) screaming? Seems just like New Yorkers themselves.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This weekend, you can step inside the New York Sign Museum for mini tours with Seery and other experts to peek at New York City’s signs of the past and the present as part of Open House New York<\/a>. The sign shop and museum will open its doors along with dozens of other typically off-limits places for this weekend-long extravaganza celebrating the fascinating nooks and crannies of the five boroughs. Open House events run from October 17-19; here’s the full list of places to visit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

RECOMMENDED: Open House 2025: 300+ seriously cool NYC sites you can explore that are typically closed to the public<\/a><\/p>\n

Open House New York was founded in the wake of 9\/11 by a grassroots group of architects who believed that “the openness of our shared urban fabric is the foundation of civil society,” event organizers explained. It officially debuted in 2003 and has run every year since.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Noble Signs was founded in 2013 and moved into its Cypress Hills, Brooklyn, building in 2018, adding the New York Sign Museum the following year. It first opened its doors for Open House New York just last year, making it one of the newest\u2014and most popular\u2014sites of the annual weekend.<\/p>\n

\"Signs
\nPhotograph: By Rossilynne Skena Culgan for Time Out New York <\/p>\n

If you visit, you’ll get to step inside the sign shop where you might catch artists painting signs. On a recent visit, the Time Out team spotted one artist painting a small pink-and-green specimen while a few others carefully wired a giant, illuminated pizza sign. Signs are everywhere here, so much so that it’s hard to take it all in. Look up to see giant\u00a0aluminum signs overhead advertising everything from pianos to meat\u2014in all caps. These relics of the ’60s and ’70s evoke the visual identity of New York City, Seery tells Time Out.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Signs
\nPhotograph: By Rossilynne Skena Culgan for Time Out New York <\/p>\n

“Signage is a way to navigate a city. It’s how you make your mental map. You know\u00a0buildings and signs. It’s important to have that connection to the city you’re in,” Seery says. “We think it’s important to maintain that identity. Each city has its own design style.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

The New York identity features modular type and bold designs, often with striking red and yellow tones to stand out in a noisy visual landscape.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Signage is a way to navigate a city. It’s how you make your mental map.<\/p>\n

“That’s a main goal of the sign museum. To be a place\u00a0where we\u00a0can educate people on sign makers and sign-making techniques, signage history, New York City design history, 20th Century design history,” Seery adds.<\/p>\n

In addition to the bevy of\u00a0exquisite metal signs you’ll see on view as you peruse the shop and the museum upstairs, also look for glowing neon signs, plastic vacuum-form signs and nearly “indestructible” porcelain signs.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A
\nPhotograph: By Rossilynne Skena Culgan for Time Out New York <\/p>\n

Noble Signs<\/a>, co-founded by David Barnett and Mac\u00a0Pohanka, makes modern signs with this old-fashioned, handmade ethos\u2014a particularly refreshing craft in an era of cheap LED signs, bland vinyl signage and widespread AI slop.\u00a0The company specializes in handmade signage, custom typography and lettering, and brand and storefront design all from their Brooklyn shop. You can see some of their work here<\/a>\u2014and on streets across New York City.<\/p>\n

As the artisans started\u00a0to study vintage signs\u00a0they picked from the garbage and received through donations, adding the museum component was a natural fit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We saw that these signs were disappearing and that this style was really endangered.<\/p>\n

“The guiding thing behind the museum is: How do we capture this unique New York style, keep it alive? Because that was why we founded Noble in the first place. We saw that these signs were disappearing and that this style was really endangered. From the very beginning, we were trying to design signs and storefronts that had context within New York City,” Barnett says.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"A
\nPhotograph: By Rossilynne Skena Culgan for Time Out New York <\/p>\n

As a graphic artist, Barnett admires the modernism, minimalism and Bauhaus quality\u00a0of New York City’s signs\u2014tenets he and the crew at Noble still strive to keep alive. The designs are fresh and clean but not sterile.<\/p>\n

“Everything has a purpose in the design. But at the same time, it has so much humanity and craft, and the personality of the people who made the\u00a0signs really comes through,” he adds.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Open House weekend, the New York Sign Museum at Noble Signs is open for free from 12-4pm on Saturday, October 18 and Sunday, October 19 at\u00a02465 Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. If you can’t make it this weekend, or you’re looking for a more in-depth tour, the museum offers weekend tours<\/a> for $25-$30. For more Open House New York fun,\u00a0here’s the\u00a0full list of places to visit<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Whether we realize it or not,\u00a0signs not only help us New Yorkers navigate the city, they also tell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6503,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1739,2530,5852,1733,1829,2520,2526,2522,2523,2524,5851,1831,4305,9,24,55,54,2529,56,904],"class_list":["post-6502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-city","tag-categories-things-to-do","tag-family-kids-good-for-kids","tag-global-kickers-love-local","tag-good-for-good-for-going-in-a-group","tag-good-for-good-for-going-solo","tag-good-for-good-for-going-with-friends","tag-good-for-good-for-locals","tag-good-for-good-for-taking-parents","tag-good-for-good-for-tourists","tag-good-for-vibe-beautiful","tag-good-for-vibe-ethical","tag-good-for-vibe-quirky","tag-more-free","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-city-headlines","tag-new-york-city-news","tag-news-events-festivals","tag-ny","tag-things-to-do"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6502"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6502\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}