Billboard Painters Frame Color:Black switching on the lights of

switching on the lights of the Empire State Building

Winds of up to 90 miles an hour last week wrecked ships

countless members of Congress and heads of state

With his own public relations and marketing concern

two years after the Empire State Building opened and adopted the title of World's Tallest Structure

Billboard Painters Frame Color:Black switching on the lights ofBefore billboards were produced on vinyl panels and unrolled at their intended sites, they were an art form created on the spot by sign painters. Posters like this one for the movie "Silver Streak" were created as small works of art, then taken to the site, where they were divided into small squares matching a larger grid. Painters reproduced the work a square at a time.