It’s hard to miss the iconic Coca-Cola and Gold Medal Flour ads painted on the side of Phenix Hall.
One vertical, the other horizontal, each lined with a golden yellow frame, their painted lettering seems to weave over and under, and it’s not clear from a distance which came first.
The double ad is one of downtown’s ghost signs, lingering painted markings or ads that remain as vestiges on older walls and buildings.
Many of Concord’s are in plain sight.
Garbo’s
At the end of the block where North Main Street intersects with Loudon Road and Centre Street, a large white banner once directed customers to Garbo’s, which was “just around the corner.
Known for great pizza and a roast beef sandwich on a grilled onion bun, Garbo’s was a Main Street staple for a hearty lunch, dinner or late-night fare. George “Garbo” Garabedian added a steakhouse next door. A little less than a decade after opening it, Garabedian sold the pizza restaurant in 1968, and its new owners renamed the spot Vegas Pizza. “Vegas” was a combined reference to their last names — Veizis and Gegas — not the Nevada city.
Treisman Bros. and Romance Chocolates
The restaurants on Depot Street are some of my favorites in Concord. Often frequenting them at night for dinner, though, I don’t know that I ever really looked up and noticed the belt of red around the building that houses Angelina’s Ristorante Italiano and Revival Kitchen and Bar. I definitely didn’t notice an ad just below the building’s roofline, facing Storrs Street.
Both remain from the days when a candy and tobacco company called the building home.
Treisman Brothers opened in 1912 and was wholesaler that supplied candy, cigarettes and other goods to stores and counters across Concord and beyond. It later expanded, adding locations in Manchester and other Granite State cities. The company had an office and a plant in the brick block on Depot Street until 1972.
In addition to the “Romance Chocolates” sign, a red stripe belts the building that once read “Treisman Bros, Inc. Fine Candies.”
Thompson & Hoague
The Thompson and Hoague company, named for Willis Thompson and Edward Hoague, also had a hardware store on Main Street, back when Main Street was unpaved, but the company bought the iron depot store, neighboring what was then the railroad station, in 1890, according to the New Hampshire Historical Society.
Just below the fading”Agricultural Warehouse” lettering once read “Adriance Buckeye Implements,” referencing a brand of farming machinery. In part of the facade no longer visible because of the green addition, there used to be the words “Iron and Steel.”
In the 1950s and 1960s, “THOCO” pivoted into a sporting goods store before it was sold in 1985.
Buckeye Mowers
Above an awning at the backside of Siam Orchid is an ad for “Buckeye Mowers,” the same producer of farm implements lettered on the Thompson & Hoague building.
