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Looking for lettering in New York’s outer boroughs is not as easy as it is in Manhattan, due to varying patterns of growth, decay and, in some cases, rebirth. The outer boroughs are more residential and less commercial than Manhattan, yet they also retain more of the city’s dwindling industrial areas. To a lesser extent they have avoided—cross my fingers—the trend toward “luxo-condo-ization.” But if any borough promises to be as rich as Manhattan in lettering it would be Brooklyn, which was actually a thriving metropolis prior to the 1898 consolidation that led to present-day greater New York while the other boroughs were largely rural.

In Brooklyn, commercial and industrial neighborhoods are the best places to find lettering since the buildings there have names, mottoes and other inscribed lettering as well as more obvious signage. In residential areas, walk-ups and tenement buildings from the end of the 19th century and Art Deco era offer prime examples, while the abundant brownstones and row houses—not to mention housing projects of the 1950s and ’60s—are not as conducive.