![]() Read it here.“Some day I’m going to write a paper about the fallout shelter signs.” Unfortunately, it took us another fewyears to realize this point and to finally reach our ‘Eureka!’moment.” You don’t have to wait a few years for the blast of realization. On most Fallout Shelter Signs … there is the following fine print: ‘Not to be used or reproduced without Department of Defense permission.’From day one this should have been a red flag to us that thesign was registered with some legal authority with a corresponding papertrail explaining its development. Greehart traces his research steps: “It turns out that the key to unraveling the story was hidden inplain sight from the beginning. The article details the reasons for creating such public shelters as well as the rationale for the design itself. “Walk around any major city today and you will still be able to seeĪt least a few rusty Fallout Shelter Signs attached to buildings of aĬertain vintage,” he adds. Of Defense to the wire services, appeared in newspapers across theĬountry heralding the new symbol that would quickly come to define anĮra,” he writes. “On Saturday, December 2, 1961, a deceptively modest graphic, transmitted the day before by the Department ![]() ![]() Ha ha! The fallout shelter sign was both a sign of eventual doom and a joke that survival was possible.īill Geerhart, editor of, has just published an extensive history of “ An Indelible Cold War Symbol” and for scholars and buffs of vernacular design, it is essential reading. Apparently, since my building was constructed of brick and mortar, we inhabitants would be safe from radioactivity. When I was a kid, every other week the air raid sirens would screech their alarming wails and my classmates and I would be ordered to “ duck and cover.” The remedy for nuclear attack (that so many pundits were predicting) was to crawl under the desk and “kiss your ass goodbye.” When released from school, I would go home to Stuyvesant Town (a postwar middle class project), where I was greeted daily by a recently installed yellow and black fallout shelter sign. ![]()
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