The Rchive no. 4—more neon

Neon R from RESTAURANT (Tom’s Restaurant, 2880 Broadway, New York City), 1957.

This lovely neon R is the second one from Tom’s Restaurant in Morningside Heights, made famous by the sitcom Seinfeld. It can be found on p. 116 of New York Neon by Tom Rinaldi (mentioned in The Rchive no. 3) as well as on his neon blog. Rinaldi says that it was originally manufactured for the Columbia Restaurant, but does not indicate when it changed hands. Unlike the neon R in The Rchive no. 3, this sans serif has a square bowl, though it retains the diagonal leg. It is neon on top of painted metal with no housing and only a single course of neon tubing. The R from Riverside Liquor had three courses giving the letter a striped appearance akin to Rudolf Koch’s Prisma typeface (Klingspor, 1931). The Tom’s Restaurant R is closer to the one in Bank Gothic  Bold by Morris Fuller Benton (American Type Founders, 1930–1933), though the leg is not as splayed and the corners of the bowl are less rounded (though that could be due to sloppy painting).