West Village Neon Walking Tour

Greenwich Village is home to some of the best surviving vintage neon signs in New York. First appearing in the 1920s and ‘30s, they advertised businesses large and small throughout the city before falling  out of favor in the 1960s thanks to rising costs, restrictive zoning ordinances, and the ascendance of cheaper alternatives. In recent years, old neon storefront signs have all but disappeared as independent businesses across NYC have succumbed to rent hikes and old age.

Join Tom Rinaldi, author of New York Neon, on a walking tour of the West Village and discover around a dozen vintage signs dating from the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s, marking the locations of some of the neighborhood’s most stalwart restaurants, bars, and small businesses. Participants will see them at dusk, as they start to come to life and when they look their best. Some have been beautifully restored; all are in perpetual danger of disappearing. Rinaldi will discuss their materials, design, origins, and future. The meeting point will be announced to ticket holders shortly in advance of the tour date.

Thomas Rinaldi grew up in the Hudson River Valley near Poughkeepsie, New York. He is the author of Patented: 1,000 Design Patents (Phaidon, 2021), New York Neon (W.W. Norton, 2012), and the co-author of the book Hudson Valley Ruins: Forgotten Landmarks of an American Landscape (University Press of New England, 2006). His photographs have been published in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, the New York Observer, Westchester Magazine, CNN Online, and have been exhibited at the New York State Museum at Albany and at the Municipal Art Society of New York. He holds degrees from Georgetown University and Columbia University, and has worked for the National Park Service, the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation, and the Central Park Conservancy. Rinaldi currently works as an architectural designer in New York City.