American Sign Museum to Receive Bernie

The two, long-standing neon signs that advertised Bernie’s Army-Navy store in Johnson City, NY, will find a home at the Cincinnati-based American Sign Museum, probably this autumn. American Sign Museum President Tod Swormstedt plans to add it to his three-dimensional Signs of Main Street display at the new, 42,000-sq.-ft. museum, scheduled to open in September.

Originally scheduled for removal when the store closed in December (the landlord didn’t wish to pay $40 a year for permits for a closed store), the sign received a reprieve when Scott Baker, a salesperson with Binghamton, NY-based 3i Graphics and Displays, contacted Swormstedt to see if the museum would consider a donation of the signs. Store manager Fred Dazewski and former owner Bernie Smigel agreed to the donation and preservation of the landmark signs.

3i removed the signs in January and have stored them at 3i’s Griswold St. location in Binghamton.

Smigel, 92, who has retired and resides in Florida, said the sign had been installed at least 59 years ago He said the store changed locations three times, within two blocks of Main Street, to keep expanding. The donated signs replicated the second set.

Bernie’s Army-Navy Store opened after World War II to sell military-related items and, later, sporting goods. When these goods became scarce during the 1950s, Smigel added Boy Scouts’ and “dimestore” items, but the Vietnam War replenished the military articles during the 1960s and ’70s. Smigel’s daughter Margie added that blue jeans, Converse sneakers and work clothes also sold well at the store.

Smigel’s four children worked at the store. “My wife tried,” Smigel said, “but I fired her during the first day, because she leaned on the counter too often. She didn’t get paid, anyway.”

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Smigel designed the signs and often handlettered his own interior, cardboard signs that announced sales.

Smigel hired Fred Daszewski in the 1960s, when he was a high-school graduate. Daszewski took over as store manager in 1988.