By Gus Saltonstall
Earlier this week, West Side Rag reported on how the removal of a longtime sidewalk shed on Broadway, between West 90th and 91st streets, led to an unexpected discovery.
The sign for Big Daddy’s, the burger joint that closed at the location in 2019, never came down.
On Friday, the Rag happened to walk by the address now home to the popular Mediterranean restaurant Dagon, as workers took down the blue and red neon sign.
The first person we spoke to who seemed involved in the work told us he thought the sign was simply going in the trash.
However, a Dagon manager standing outside the restaurant who did not provide his name, confirmed exclusively to West Side Rag that the sign would not be thrown out and instead get used elsewhere. He did not know specifically where the sign was going.
Workers were also in the process on Friday of taking down the remains of Big Daddy’s from the front of the restaurant.
Here is what it looked like earlier this week.
The Rag will continue to work to monitor the future of the Big Daddy’s Upper West Side sign.
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I’d buy that sign. Contact me!
How about putting it directly outside the window of the person who was being really obnoxious in bad mouthing Big Daddy’s?
Note that I believe that everyone is entitled to their opinion and different people can like and dislike different things – Trump hasn’t quite taken away this right from us yet. But there are appropriate and inappropriate ways to express a negative reaction to a business and that person was being rude, nasty and inappropriate.
TDS much? It’s been the Left that has used cancel culture over the last few years to silence those with whom they disagree.
Let’s be real. The Left has been awful, but MAGA is also awful in squelching speech and people.
Once we recognize how bad both sides have behaved we might actually make some progress. Until then, it’s all tribal.
Vegas has the Neon Museum, a graveyard of sorts for signs like this. Brooklyn has one too. Maybe Big Daddy’s can find it’s final resting place there across the bridge.
It’s perfect for the NY Sign Museum
https://nysignmuseum.org/
You may need to go to the site and claim the sign.
When Gitlitz closed, they simply put the letters of their sign on the sidewalk as garbage. A friend of mine who’s name begins with “G” was able to grab the “G” from the sign, which hangs proudly in her living room. Sadly, I was too slow to grab either of the “i”‘s.
When Gitlitz closed they covered the sign with a canvas sign for Love Store. When the Love Store closed, what maybe 15 or 20 years ago they removed the canvas and the old Gitlitz sign was revealed. When I saw it it brought tears to my eyes as when I moved to W78 St in 1974 Gitlitz represented the urban intellectual nature of our neighborhood then. After a few weeks i passed by and workers with asthetilin torches were taking it apart. Then the T Mobile sign that’s still there went up and a piece of Westside history was gone.
Here is the link for The New York Sign Museum in Brooklyn on Instagram. Hope it finds a home there. https://www.instagram.com/nysignmuseum/?hl=en
Please don’t put the scaffolding back.
Same thing was happening to the old Rite Aid signage at Wonder on Columbus and W 97th yesterday.
If there are no exact plans for the Big Daddy sign, it should most definitely be given to a prop house or film company to use as a backdrop for a film about the 1950s and ’60s. I would be wary about what the restaurant manager said, Not To Doubt him, but only because sometimes people just don’t have the correct information. Is there something that your publication can do to follow up on this and make sure the right thing is done?
In addition to my own response, you can see from the other responses here that there is great hope for that sign. It just needs to be worked out so that a construction company or real estate developer doesn’t make a random bad decision about it. Quick action needs to be taken.
There’s a sign museum in Brooklyn that might want it!
What’s the story with this scaffolding that has been up for seven years, was recently — but only temporarily — taken down, and is going right back up as soon as the owner’s June 2026 permit application is approved? That’s the story I want to read! Why was it there? Is work being done on the building? Are there structural issues with the building’s facade? I notice it’s being called a “shed”. That sounds permanent. What’s the story?
Shed is the part we all hate. Scaffolding secures the building itself. Sheds are a barrier in case something falls from the building itself or while repair work or construction is going on.
Imagine replacing The TRUMP TOWER
signage at Fifth Avenue & 56th with
B I G D A D D Y.
Maybe he’d love the idea.