ONlY 99¢

I help an elderly man named Bob in the neighborhood with his grocery shopping at Key Foods on 7th Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn.  He's quite finicky, and devoutly sticks to a select few brands of food items.  Over the last 40 years in this neighborhood, Bob has refined his taste, and knows exactly what he likes and dislikes.  He doesn't like Wise, claims they are the worst chips ever, with a far higher "brown spot" ratio than most other brands.  And forget chips with ridges, they hurt his gums!  So when it comes to Potatoe Chips ONlY 99¢, Bob insists of Utz Onion & Garlic.  But if Bob could only see this sign, he might just go for the Wise.

ONlY the Lonely

CASH AND CREDIT ONlY reads the hand written sign at Register #6 of the Key Foods grocery store on 7th Ave here in Park Slope, Brooklyn. We've seen some lowercase L's that could be the result of an author running out of space while writing, forced to squeeze in a skinny "l" instead of the wasteful uppercase L with its broad right-reaching bottom. But in this example, ONlY is the ONlY word in that line of text, with ample room on the left and right to spread out. So why go with a lowercase L? God ONlY knows.

INVitE ONlY

I thought I had tapped every case of lowercase L in Park Slope, since I spend so much time in my neighborhood. But, while walking down 7th Avenue with some friends, heading to Yamato for sushi, this new sign in the door caught my eye. Sure enough, we've got lowercase L in ONlY! (lower right corner of the sign). Interestingly, the writer also uses lowercase "i" in other words, which takes some of the edge off the lowercase L in the end.

Since I thought I had combed this town of all its lowercase L's, I didn't take my camera with me when I left this evening. The sign was obviously a temporary post for the Private Shoe Party going on that night, so I knew I had to act fast. After we were seated for dinner at Yamato, I ran home to get my camera, back to the sign to snap the photo, and back to join my friends at the restaurant, just in time for the appetizers. Good thing I ran, too, because when I walked by the store again after dinner, the sign was gone.