I don’t know when the Olympic Bar and Restaurant on 115 South Pearl Street shut down. Maybe it shut down 30 years ago, maybe 10 years ago. All I do know is that the only reference to the Olympic Bar that I could find in the Times Union’s archives involved a robbery that occurred there in 1990.
But the metal sign outside the building, with its protective chicken-wire mesh screen and the twisted, cracked neon lighted sign, has been allowed to naturally deteriorate over the decades.
And, like several other Capital District photographic subjects, I’ve tested my camera gear with the Olympic Bar sign over time.
This shot was taken in 2009, using my old Nikon D70.
This next shot was taken in 2010, when I tested out my first roll of efke film and a new (to me) Kodak Brownie Super 27 camera.
This shot was taken in 2011, when I was playing with a Revere 127 shooter; I actually packed expired 35mm Svema film in it and hoped for the best. Didn’t get the best, but I got something that gave me an idea for future use for the crackly, aged Svema film.
Don’t know why I used redscale film for this in 2012… maybe I was just burning off a roll of film and this was one of my last shots.
So a few weeks ago, I used up some shots of ISO 25 efke film to re-photograph the Olympic Bar sign. You can see from the shadows inside the sign’s protective cage, that the “IC” in the neon word “Olympic” has broken off and disappeared.
And here’s one I took a few days ago. This is a close-up with my telephoto lens, and I went back to the digital gear for this image. This is also the first shot in this series to be photographed facing SOUTH on South Pearl Street, towards the Department of Motor Vehicles. And on this side, the neon glass tubing for “Olympic” is still somewhat intact.
Here I am, working with an old, rusty, worn-out sign for a bar that tossed out Francis Phelan at last call. If I could find a way to make this sign sparkle one more time, without having to re-wire and re-align all the neon inside the cage…
There’s something about the way this sign has aged over the years. How the sun and wind have worn the paint down, how the neon tubing has come loose from its bolted moorings, yet the shadows from the tubing still carefully spell out the bar’s name.
I’ve photographed ghost signs in the past. I’ve also photographed signs from long-closed businesses like L-Ken’s Diner. But I have to tell you, this sign has its own coolness factor.
And someday… mark my words… I’ll get a waycool picture out of this sign.
One that’s worth entering in competition.
Until then… I’ll just keep experimenting with what I have.
Chuck The Writer 
Definitely an interesting suject. Is there a way to incorporate some surrounding features to contrast with the weathered sign? Maybe shoot it with a telephoto to flatten the scene with some other, more modern nearby street signs/lights etc.?
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@Chuck..the Olympic was owned for years by the Malatesta family in Albany…
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I knew something looked different about the latest photo when I saw it on flickr… did you use some perspective correction in post, or were you just able to elevate yourself enough to shoot it more straight-on?
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I shot the last picture tighter, I had my telephoto (80-200 f/2.8) and was far enough away that I could shoot the image straight on without it looking like the sign was way over my head.
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Interesting, looks like that 80-200 has quite a bit of pincushion then, if you look at the bar and the bottom of the sign. Wouldn’t expect that from a flagship lens, I know Nikon’s optics are excellent.
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