Upper West Side Tip Top Shoes Is Getting a New Storefront Sign

By Gus Saltonstall

Tip Top Shoes, the iconic Upper West Side shoe store, is replacing its longtime sign on the front of the business.

Lester Wasserman, the fourth-generation owner of the store at 155 West 72nd Street, along with designer Alexander King, presented their plans for the new sign to Community Board 7’s Preservation Committee at the end of July.

The store has to meet with the CB7 committee because it is located within the Upper West Side Historic District.

King told the committee Wasserman brought him in to give the sign, which was installed sometime in the early 2000s, “more character.”

“Fast, quick vinyl signs not only don’t look the part, but they also don’t last,” King said of the current sign. “A lot of business owners are going back to signs from the 1940s all the way to the 1980s, back to when craftsmen were designing them.”

The new sign will incorporate elements from past Tip Top Shoes signs in the 1970s and 80s.

All the typography on the new sign will be hand done, and King pointed to Barney Greengrass’ sign as a good comparison for the style.

Here is the rendering of what Tip Top Shoe’s new sign will look like.

The new sign will also include the store’s slogan, “Where Your Feet Are in Good Hands.”

“I think it will do 72nd Street quite a bit of justice when the sign returns to its old form, and hopefully other retailers follow suit and make their signs look as good as ours,” Wasserman told the CB7 committee. “I don’t say it braggingly, I say that genuinely.”

The subject of 72nd Street resulted in the following exchange after Wasserman’s remark.

“That depends on the new design of 72nd Street,” one committee member said in reference to the ongoing two-way bike lane proposal.

“We’re not going to discuss that now,” the committee head quickly responded as a few laughs broke out in the background.

The committee members all spoke positively about the redesign of Tip Top Shoes and voted unanimously in support of the changes.

Next, Tip Top Shoes will have to secure permission of the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission to make the changes.

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