A sign in the Tenderloin was a neighborhood staple. After 107 years, it's going to disappear.

Kahn and Keville's iconic sign over the years. Kahn and Keville's iconic sign over the years. Photo: Google Maps Photo: Google Maps Image 1 of / 28 Caption Close A sign in the Tenderloin was a neighborhood staple. After 107 years, it's going to disappear. 1 / 28 Back to Gallery

Deep in the Tenderloin, a tire shop’s marquee stood like a beacon of fortune cookie wisdom — the Chronicle’s Herb Caen reportedly even called it the largest in the city — encouraging passersby to look up at its tidbits of advice, famous quotes as well as the once-in-a-while wisecrack.

After becoming an unmistakable character in the neighborhood and an archive of some of the issues that mattered most to the city, the automotive garage will soon be closing after more than a century in business.

Click through the gallery for quotes over the years from the iconic sign at auto shop Kahn and Keville.

NBC Bay Area reports Kahn and Keville, located on 500 Turk Street, was purchased by the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation, which plans to repurpose the building into affordable housing.

The trend of unusual messages allegedly began when co-founder Hugh Keville returned from World War I and had reportedly gotten into the habit of writing inspirational musings in his notebook to lift his spirits. Butcher paper was the canvas onto which he would scribble his daily sentiments until that became too small and a proper sign was constructed on the corner of Larkin and Turk. However, a 2018 episode of KQED's Bay Curious podcast about the sign's history suggests it may have also started out as a blackboard stationed in the cashier's window of the tire shop.

From then on, it was a tradition to keep the sign going because people seemed to like it — even new owners like Ron Dhein, one of the multiple partners who reportedly bought the garage in the late ‘70s.

“Never talks about money or tires or brakes,” Dhein told NBC, describing the sign’s revolving messages. “It only talks about maybe events around it.”

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A quote from Gavin Elster — the notorious antagonist of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” — scribed earlier this September eerily presaged the sign’s own demise: “The things that spell San Francisco to me are disappearing fast.”

Following the Women’s World Cup win, a quote from Megan Rapinoe was displayed: “We have to be better. We have to love more and hate less. Listen more and talk less.”

“A loss for words” was perhaps one of its most attention-grabbing statements, placed just days after the results were determined for the 2016 election, as was "At last," when the landmark decision to legalize gay marriage was made in 2015.

The sign's most recently visible, plastic-lettered remark appeared to be, “When old people die it’s like a library of stories burning down."

But it’s possible the sign could bid one final goodbye. The garage, open since 1912, will reportedly shutter at the end of the year.

David Baker Architects, the firm responsible for building 555 Larkin, said they plan on implementing the heritage of the community bulletin board into the forthcoming housing project.

“We’re thinking hard about how to integrate this quirky San Francisco legacy into the new design,” they wrote.

Operations will continue at Kahn and Keville's second location in South San Francisco.

Read the full story, including additional comment from Dhein and neighborhood business owners, on NBC News here.

Amanda Bartlett is an SFGATE associate digital reporter. Email: amanda.bartlett@sfgate.com | Twitter: @byabartlett