Artkraft Strauss began as Strauss Signs. Founded in 1897 by artisan Benjamin Strauss, the company furnished New York’s retailers with posters and painted show cards. By the 1910s and 20s, Strauss signs, applying the innovative methods of a Ukrainian immigrant named
Jacob Starr, had become the Square’s principal builder of theater marquees and entertainment displays, including the original marquee for the
New Amsterdam Theatre. In the 1920s Starr left Strauss to start his own engineering firm in association with the Artkraft Company of Lima, Ohio, a leading maker of neon lighting, a newly minted technology. Starr formed Artkraft-New York, and in 1931 merged with his old employer, Strauss, creating Artkraft Strauss. The company occupied its block-wide manufacturing facility at 57th Street and the West Side Highway for 75 years, until 2001, when it moved its operations to Queens. By the 1950s, Artkraft Strauss had dominated the outdoor advertising market in Times Square, and was known worldwide. Artkraft Strauss maintained its singular presence in Times Square after neon had been eclipsed by electronic technologies, a process that began in the 1980s, and was thus involved in the area’s rebirth after years of deterioration. Chief among its work from this period are the block-long news and stock tickers on the
Morgan Stanley Building, and the 1992
Coca-Cola sign in the northern part of Times Square, which featured state-of-the-art digital technology. It also rebuilt the
Pepsi-Cola sign in
Long Island City,
Queens, in 1993. After divesting itself of its manufacturing facilities and the majority of its outdoor advertising locations in 2006, Artkraft Strauss became a design and project management consultant. It also established an archive of its photos and other memorabilia, a collection spanning over a century of
New York City commercial and esthetic history. Today, the company maintains a small number of billboards, and provides a variety of sign designer and consulting services to architects, historians, designers, and other outdoor advertising companies. The works of Artkraft Strauss are not limited to just
New York City. It fabricated the 120-by-70-foot (36.58-by-21.34-
meter) neon sign for the
Domino Sugars plant in
Baltimore's
Inner Harbor which was first illuminated on April 25, 1951. The neon tubing was replaced by
LED lighting when the sign was modernized in 2021. ==References==