On it, you will notice a couple of weathered, painted signs. The one on the bottom says "Boston Clothing House," and the one on the top reads "Uneeda Biscuits." Since my photo doesn't really do it justice, let's zoom in with one taken by an actual photographer named Mitchell Frye:
This image captures the value, and personality of the sign (Click Here to Check out Frye's Photography). When the paint was fresh and still drying, the sign would have been a piece of art--but with the age and texture so apparent in the weathering, it is now art with gravitas. The sign has long since swapped commercialism for a sense of unadulterated Americana. It now possesses an inherent feeling of nostalgia for a forgotten product, and a bygone era.
As the biscuit sign sits there, fading away on its own brick canvas, it is a performance art piece with a strange audience.
For a few moments every day, Amtrak passengers in Schenectady, New York may look up from the distractions of the modern day to notice the faded old sign, before the train pulls away. And the few stragglers on the platform might look at the train, and look back at the old biscuit sign... and for a few short moments, they may feel lost in time. Lost between two relics -- a fading commercial boast, and the steel rails themselves. They may feel lost in the unintended artistic power of a piece long since forgotten by the company that created it, in a city long since forgotten by some of the companies that built it. They may feel lost in the sense of constant and continual change captured on the face of that old brick wall by the station.
That's a pretty poignant legacy for a biscuit sign...
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