Vintage German American Print - Schmidts of Philadelphia - Northern Liberties Brewery - German American - 2nd Street and Girard Avenue

Vintage German American Print - Schmidts of Philadelphia - Northern Liberties Brewery - German American - 2nd Street and Girard AvenueTreasures from THE PHILADELPHIA COLLECTION at The Willing Mind. By exclusive arrangement with The Grand Review. Print size 18 x 24, and consciously formatted to work with a standard size store bought frame, or custom framed as you see fit. When Philadelphia's Northern Liberties neighborhood was about equal parts small arms fire and cars in flames versus little enclaves of pioneering groovers, we bought a few properties right behind ol' Schmidt's, by

Treasures from THE PHILADELPHIA COLLECTION at The Willing Mind. By exclusive arrangement with The Grand Review.

Print size 18 x 24, and consciously formatted to work with a standard size store bought frame, or custom framed as you see fit.

When Philadelphia's Northern Liberties neighborhood was about equal parts small arms fire and cars in flames versus little enclaves of pioneering groovers, we bought a few properties right behind ol' Schmidt's, by then an enormous derelict monstrosity, and moved in. 

There was a real push among some in the neighborhood to knock it down and put up a minor league baseball stadium. It was, they announced, to be called Liberty Yards. Their vision was cute and embraceable as the way things should be if we were all as loving and nice as we could and should be. Problem was they had no power or authority, and even if they could rally around a single developer, said developer would throw them under the bus in a heartbeat and sell the 'naming rights' to anyone and for however much they could get. I remember telling these guys at a public meeting that we were far more likely to end up with Fleet Enema Stadium than Liberty Yards. Hey, I'm an unapologetic optimist, but how many times in life do you walk, smiling, into a cast iron frying pan that's being swung at you before you learn to duck?

Anyway, all of these building were ready for the wrecker ball save one, which was a gem worth taking a moment and looking up on line so you can join the collective impotent fury at its loss at the hands of a Philistine. Philadelphia, with its wealth of amazing historic structures, has a cup so filled to overflowing that we spill a few here and there like drunken louts. We forget that Pittsburgh was once The Western Frontier, and everything west of that is relatively brand new.

That said, this delightful graphic captures the whole scene, pre Godzilla walk through. It started out as a bar menu, with the rendering tiny at the bottom, the logo smallish at the top, and plenty of blank space in the middle for the waitress to write in some variation of Utterly Delicious Dripping Roast Beef Sandwich. Then she'd stand it up in one of those weighted stands with the coil of stainless that used to be on every bar table, everywhere.

Hmmmmmmm, I think me and the missus oughta head out this evening for just such a sloppy sandwich. Yum!

• Handmade item
• Materials: Art stock enhanced matte paper, archival ink
• Made to order
• Only ships within United States.

SHIPPING

All prints are shipped in a sturdy mailing tube for $8, which covers postage, tube and S & H.

BUYING MORE THAN ONE PRINT? Add a second print or any number thereafter of this or any other prints in our catalog and shipping is still just $8, total!!!

International shipping is available and reasonable. Please contact us for details.

A NOTE ON OUR PROCESS, OUR CHOICES AND THE QUALITY OF THE GRAPHIC CRAFTSMANSHIP THAT GOES INTO OUR PRINTS.

Every print we deem exciting enough to present to the public via our Etsy store or available here at our studio has gone through a number of steps. The first of those is always discovering and falling in love with an obscure image, always an original that we can hold in our hands. That image is speaking to us, sometime screaming “Don’t leave me here. See what I am, what I was, what I can be, what I SHOULD be!”

There is a real sense of excitement involved, and a great many smiles and knowing grins when we make that deal and bring that ancient print, that battered photo, that scrap of ephemera that contains some scrap of genius from an unknown commercial artist home with us, knowing already how we mean to approach its restoration.

There is the heady promise of a further hunt just as real as what drags a weekend fisherman out of bed at 3AM to work a favorite brook as we start our research, looking for that great backstory, and both ready and willing to tumble down as many rabbit holes as are revealed to us to get that story.

Then there is a meticulous digital restoration that is as often as much fun as riding a vintage Moto Guzzi on a winding coastal road. I don’t care if that sounds crazy, it really is like jumping in the saddle! So many choices, so many chances to take to subtly or spectacularly give new life to otherwise permanently obscure images.

This dedication and the ongoing rush of joy in the accomplishment of it, and the opportunity to share the results in our studio and here on Etsy, is the fire of passion that keeps these engines roaring. We make every effort to ensure our customers are not just satisfied but thrilled, and we happily stand 100% behind our work.