The Gift to Match

My brother, Chris and his wife had their first date at RAOUL’S. DC’s TOMBS was a second home for me and my posse while students at Georgetown University. And while UNION SQUARE CAFÉ’s pricey menu was out of reach for two twenty-something New Yorkers, its hot-spot allure made it a regular after-work drink spot for me and my oldest friend, Shari.

Each of us has those special-occasion restaurants or neighborhood watering holes that serve as the settings for great memories in our lives. And it’s surprising how a simple matchbook can light a fire under them.

With his simple, stately images of matchbooks and boxes, photographer (and New Jersey native) Charles Ryan Clark has turned our nostalgia into an art form—which is exactly what the matchbook was in its heyday (roughly 1920 through World War II).

Invented in 1892 by Philadelphia lawyer, Joshua Pusey, matchbooks became a favorite means of advertising—a famous early example being the blank matchbook (below) on which the Mendelson Opera Company hand-printed messages and pictures of their leading players.

While the decline of smoking hit the industry hard, the matchbook’s appeal never died. They’re “a nostalgic collectible [that] people hold onto,” says Peter Garfield, managing partner of Chicago’s One Off Hospitality Group. And it’s that nostalgia that makes Clark’s prints a unique and heartfelt gift.

His online gallery (charlesryanclarke.com) includes fabled spots in New York, LA, Nantucket and DC; as well as 69 colleges. For Springsteen fans, there’s even a matchbook from The Stone Pony, the fabled Asbury Park, NJ rock venue that remains the Boss’s hometown stage (with 50% of that print’s proceeds benefitting the Food Bank of New Jersey).

At $160 signed and framed, they’re a deal as far as gallery prints go. “They pass my ‘sniff test’ for timelessness,” Clark says, “and are [pictures] I think you'll be able to hang on your wall and appreciate forever.”

Hey, Georgetown’s TOMBS, I’m saving a place on my wall for you.