“Hipster” Ghost Sign in Chicago

This little “hipster” ghost sign is located at North Clark St. and West North Ave. in the Old Town/Near North Side section of Chicago, right down the street from the Chicago History Museum. With a mustache and bowler hat, it advertised an unknown bank with the slogan “The old-fashioned neighborhood bank in the Germania Club Building.”

The ghost sign is painted on the north wall of the old Germania Club Building, designed in 1888 by the architectural firm of Addison & Fielder and currently a swanky event space called Germania Place.

The Village Theatre seen in the photo was built in 1916 as the Germania in 1916, but the name was changed after the US entry into WWI, when anti-German sentiment was running high. Around the same time, the Germania Building in Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati was renamed the Columbia for the same reason.