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  Trenton sign maker leaves his mark over Mercer County

  Posted by .News on 17 March 2015 at 02:45

  

  What Michelangelo was to the Sistine Chapel, George Zienowicz is to the commercial advertising signs in New Jersey’s capital region. "You can’t drive anywhere within a 10-mile radius of Trenton without seeing something I made," the sign maker explains. There is no ego attached to his statement.

  

  The simple fact is that after nearly 25 years of designing and manufacturing all manner of signs in the area under his Zienowicz Sign Co. logo, the multitalented artist has made his mark in everything from neon and glass to the more modern Plexiglas and LED lights at locations as diverse as Drumthwacket (the governor’s residence), barbershops, real estate offices and pizza joints.

  

  

  

  "I’m probably best known for making that sign for (former Trenton) Mayor Tony Mack over the entrance to Cadwalader Park," Zienowicz volunteers. (The $17,000 sign was removed after protests that Mack did not have permission to spend the money for the sign or secure permission from preservation and historical commissions to have it placed in the park.) There was a time when neon was a specialty of Zienowicz’s. But the gas and glass lighting fell out of favor when LED lighting emerged as a substitute. The company still repairs aging neon signs but rarely makes new ones. "The last one I did was for a restaurant," Zienowicz explains, "and all it said was ‘we deliver.’"

  

  His business is located in an unexpected area in Chambersburg along East Canal Street, not a neighborhood for casual exploration. The River Line train makes itself known every so often in a shriek and a roar, like a fierce, random wind suddenly passing in the background. Zienowicz left the onetime E.J. Scudder Foundry building down the street where he shared space with woodworker David Robinson four years ago to set up shop in the former Kirkham & Guthrie Inc. Printers site, a red brick building of an odd configuration that he bought "cheap’ because it needed a roof and other repairs.

  

  Inside, with its nooks and crannies, is an assortment of just about everything: a motorcycle hanging from the rafters, a truck lodged in its parking space and aimed at a back door for an easy exit, old signs, bikes, machinery, lettering and the tools of Zienowicz’s trade. The outside rear door is made of the sign lettering from the former Urban Word Café on South Broad Street. Other signs hanging on the walls are either reclaimed from closed businesses or stored for businesses about to reopen. It’s an unlikely place for what can seem like an almost miraculous transformation of wood, paint, metal, rock and inspiration into something that will become a tasteful commercial sign after a bit of sandblasting, carving and the like.

  

  Resting against a counter in the business is the result of one of Zienowicz’s more recent works: a handsome 3-by-4-foot Plexiglas sign whose embedded LED lights allow a Zodiac symbol and the words "Princeton Village Psychic" to shine in seven alternating colors. The Hamilton Township-raised craftsman been in business since 1991 after a career in the mid-’70s that included jobs as a copy boy then advertising graphic artist at The Trentonian newspaper. Carpentry, playing the bagpipes, fiddle and violin in a Celtic band and riding a unicycle are just part of the patchwork quilt-like repertoire of Zienowicz’s life.

  

  Dressed in a black turtleneck and slacks, the bearded man who describes himself as a "jack of all trades and master of one" has two workers at his shop as well as the company of Colleen Ayers, his girlfriend. A prep school teacher, she cheerily describes Zienowicz as a "PHD" – "post hole digger." Most of the company’s business comes through "word of mouth," says Zienowicz, who will discuss materials, time needed and elements of design before coming up with a price. He says he’s at the shop seven days a week and is "100 percent hands-on" with the work.

  

  "Some people come in knowing what they want. Others don’t," he points out. Now a resident of Jackson Township, Zienowicz has weathered fluctuations in the business and gone from five employees to two since 2008. He cites computers and LED lighting as being the two main factors in his changing business. "Computers have been around for 30 years and we use them for lettering and cutting. And LED has so completely replaced neon. Neon costs a lot more because of the labor." And what if George Zienowicz had to choose his favorite work.

  

  He answers without hesitation. "I’m proud of it all."

  For further information:
  Zienowicz Sign Co.
  202 E Canal St.
  Trenton
  NJ 08609
  Zsigns@verizon.net
  http://www.zsigns.com/

  
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  .News replied 10 years, 7 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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