When I see this, I think of that old question, did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?

That’s a little bit related to the creationist Omphalos hypothesis, an old argument that God created the universe and the earth 6,00 years ago, but with the appearance of deep time (e.g. fossils, canyons and the apparently ancient geologic record). My understanding is that even most creationists don’t believe this, exactly. But my observation here is that a lot of new developments are doing this Omphalos thing for the built environment: creating what appear to be historical artifacts or evidence of modification over time, so that brand-new developments feel historic and lived-in.

Here’s another example. These are mostly in a parking garage at a newish mixed-use development in Gaithersburg, Maryland:

I can’t find anything about them online. One of my friends, who shares my interest in such things, also tried to look up the text in these painted ads. Maybe we’re wrong, and they’re taken from demolished buildings or based on old-town Gaithersburg signs, but as far as she could tell, they are not real even in the sense of referencing things that exist. So they’re not even reproductions, but murals referring to a past that didn’t happen...