Label
Nozaki Biyouin — Beauty Shoppe
1940s
313½ East First Street, Little Tokyo, Los Angeles
Donated by the Kawasaki Family
This beauty salon sign was located on the same building as MONA’s Matsu-No Sushi restaurant sign. Nozaki Biyouin is written in intricately bent kanji characters. The first two letters of the sign spell the family name, Nozaki. Upon further inspection, MONA historians noticed the current family name is painted over the name of a previous family, which cannot be clearly made out. Also of note are the names Floyd and Wade, which were scrawled into the sign by a ne’er-do-well hanging out of the second floor window when the sign was displayed.
This beauty salon sign, as well as its neighbor Matsu-No-Sushi, are rare pre-World War II era signs from Los Angeles’ Little Tokyo district, prior to the internment of Japanese Americans. The sign is an important historic artifact of the large Japanese American population that helped shape Los Angeles’ distinct culture.