In East New York, Brooklyn, the New York Sign Museum Opened Its Doors for OHNY Weekend

The New York Sign Museum in East New York, Brooklyn, opened to the public on October 17 and 18 as part of Open House New York's OHNY Weekend, a citywide festival that ran October 16 to 18.

The museum showed preserved signs from across the 20th century, with an emphasis on hand-painted work and signs made by skilled craftspeople. Seeing the real objects up close offered a look at the lettering and design that once defined storefronts and street corners around the city. The festival listing places the museum at Noble Signs.

It was one of more than 300 destinations in this year's festival, which is known for opening buildings and workplaces that are usually closed to the public. For visitors, the sign museum was a chance to look at a part of the urban landscape that is easy to walk past: the painted and crafted signs that give New York's streets much of their character.

For anyone interested in the city's visual history, the weekend offered a reason to head out to the eastern edge of Brooklyn and look closely at the craft behind the signs.