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NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by gbs on Fri Oct 21 21:28:56 2016

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The photos in the thread about the vintage buses also showed the old NYC street signs. Notice the black-on-yellow Manhattan signs:



Each borough had its own color scheme (except for Staten Island, which used the Manhattan colors). From top to bottom are Manhattan, Queens, Bronx, Brooklyn, Staten Island:



The Brooklyn colors were a holdover from the previous generation of Brooklyn signs, embossed porcelain. No other borough had such signs (but Queens College did):



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(319958)

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A Queens College sign

Posted by gbs on Fri Oct 21 21:49:03 2016, in response to NYC 1960s street signs, posted by gbs on Fri Oct 21 21:28:56 2016.

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(319959)

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Re: NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by Catfish 44 on Fri Oct 21 22:25:01 2016, in response to NYC 1960s street signs, posted by gbs on Fri Oct 21 21:28:56 2016.

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Nice to see them again.

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(319961)

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Re: NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by N6 Limited on Fri Oct 21 22:49:05 2016, in response to NYC 1960s street signs, posted by gbs on Fri Oct 21 21:28:56 2016.

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Too bady they can't return to the color scheme.

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(319963)

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Re: NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by fishbowls4ever on Fri Oct 21 23:11:35 2016, in response to NYC 1960s street signs, posted by gbs on Fri Oct 21 21:28:56 2016.

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Hey I lived on Foster Ave!

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(319974)

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Re: NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by BrooklynBus on Sat Oct 22 09:55:29 2016, in response to Re: NYC 1960s street signs, posted by Catfish 44 on Fri Oct 21 22:25:01 2016.

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And unlike today's signs, they never faded from the sun.

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(319978)

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Re: NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by Catfish 44 on Sat Oct 22 10:31:56 2016, in response to Re: NYC 1960s street signs, posted by BrooklynBus on Sat Oct 22 09:55:29 2016.

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Word

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(319984)

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Re: NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by Dyre Dan on Sat Oct 22 13:08:05 2016, in response to Re: NYC 1960s street signs, posted by BrooklynBus on Sat Oct 22 09:55:29 2016.

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Sure they did:



Photo from Forgotten-ny.com

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(319985)

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Re: NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by Kriston Lewis on Sat Oct 22 13:47:05 2016, in response to NYC 1960s street signs, posted by gbs on Fri Oct 21 21:28:56 2016.

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Lower Manhattan has signs in an handsome black and white scheme installed by the Downtown Alliance in 2001. They have small images of landmarks within them.

There's also white on blue signage on intersections along the AirTrain JFK corridor installed by the Port Authority.

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(320008)

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Re: NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by TerrApin Station on Sat Oct 22 23:14:52 2016, in response to Re: NYC 1960s street signs, posted by Dyre Dan on Sat Oct 22 13:08:05 2016.

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Owned. BrooklynBus wrong again.

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(320009)

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Re: NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by TerrApin Station on Sat Oct 22 23:15:24 2016, in response to Re: NYC 1960s street signs, posted by Kriston Lewis on Sat Oct 22 13:47:05 2016.

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Too cool.

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(320012)

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Re: NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by Spider-Pig on Sat Oct 22 23:19:45 2016, in response to Re: NYC 1960s street signs, posted by Dyre Dan on Sat Oct 22 13:08:05 2016.

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He was talking about the porcelain signs.

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(320065)

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Re: A Queens College sign

Posted by R36 #9346 on Mon Oct 24 13:29:35 2016, in response to A Queens College sign, posted by gbs on Fri Oct 21 21:49:03 2016.

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I'm quite sure that one is still there.

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(320071)

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Re: NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by WayneJay on Mon Oct 24 16:51:36 2016, in response to NYC 1960s street signs, posted by gbs on Fri Oct 21 21:28:56 2016.

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I always liked that each borough had it's own color sign. It also came in handy for me in areas near the Brooklyn/Queens border.

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(321282)

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Re: NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by W.B. on Fri Dec 23 12:37:47 2016, in response to NYC 1960s street signs, posted by gbs on Fri Oct 21 21:28:56 2016.

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The 'E 57 ST' sign dated to c.1965-66. The signs for '225 ST', 'MORRIS AV' and 'FOSTER AV' were all from the 1969-70+ period (as were the 'WASHINGTON STREET' and 'BATTERY PL' signs in that pic where TA bus 8899 was shown). 'RATHBUN AVE' would have been circa 1966. Many sections in all five boroughs had newer color-coded street signs installed in different times over the years (the earliest, of course, being put up in 1964 in very select areas). A few weren't even touched; 1950's black-on-yellow signs were seen at some parts of the FDR Drive (i.e. around East 108th Street) well into the late 1980's.

Living in Manhattan all my life, it would appear the Midtown section had the newer type of street sign installed before the rest of the borough. Walking through Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue), for example, at 23rd Street and below (as far south as its start point around Franklin Street), one could spot a plethora of 'AVE OF THE AMERICAS' signs all on one line in 4" high Highway Gothic B. North of 23rd, was 'AVENUE OF THE' spaced out in small 2" type, and 'AMERICAS' above it, open-spaced 4" high type of Highway Gothic C. That latter one would have been mass-produced in 1965-66, along with (for example) 'LEXINGTON AVE' signs where the Lexington part was 5" high - a size not used before or since.

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(321291)

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Re: NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by B53RICH on Fri Dec 23 15:19:54 2016, in response to Re: NYC 1960s street signs, posted by W.B. on Fri Dec 23 12:37:47 2016.

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"The signs for '225 ST', 'MORRIS AV' and 'FOSTER AV' were all from the 1969-70+ period"

Are you referring to those particular signs or the use of those color coded signs in general? Living in Queens back then, we had the white(beige) with blue letter signs years before 1969 as well as Brooklyn with their black/white signs.

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(321332)

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Re: NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by W.B. on Sun Dec 25 05:14:44 2016, in response to Re: NYC 1960s street signs, posted by B53RICH on Fri Dec 23 15:19:54 2016.

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I'm referring to those particular signs. There is a means to detect what year(s) certain street signs were installed based on what type was used (and their shape), how they were laid out, and so forth. 1969-70 signs with that layout were famous for 'ST', 'AV' etc., set in 3" Highway Gothic D, close to the vest in terms of their justified-top-right positioning. 1965-66 signs, as I've said, used 'AVE' abbreviations in 3" high Highway Gothic C (except on Madison Avenue where the 'AVE' was 2" high), plus use of 5" high type on some intersections (i.e. Broadway, Lexington Avenue) - and one of the last uses of Highway Gothic A, on Riegelmann Boardwalk in Brooklyn, before that super-ultra-condensed variant was struck from the feds' recommendations for type weights (which afterwards ranged only from B to F) on street/road signs, etc.

That white on Queens signs was almost an off-white, reminiscent of what Rosco calls 'TV white' for use on 'white' backdrops for TV scenery. It would appear beige only because of yellowing from the passage of time.

As well, I saw on Flickr a 1965 photo someone took near Broadway and 52nd Street, on the latter street facing east. The 'BROADWAY' sign on the northwest corner, one of the first of the post-1964 signage installed, was only 24" long, as opposed to the 36" length that would come to be associated with that long stretch. Of course 4" high type was used, thus hardly readable.

We must also not forget the black type on off-white background 'FASHION AV' signs installed after 1972 on Seventh Avenue in Manhattan (the only other unique color scheme), and 'RESTAURANT ROW' on 46th Street between 8th and 9th Avenues which, at the point such signs were installed in 1973, had the same color scheme as Brooklyn. In that sense, only Queens' color scheme was never used on any Manhattan street (I think of certain special signs whose color scheme matched the old Bronx').

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(321334)

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Re: NYC 1960s street signs

Posted by B53RICH on Sun Dec 25 09:37:06 2016, in response to Re: NYC 1960s street signs, posted by W.B. on Sun Dec 25 05:14:44 2016.

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Interesting, thank you for clarifying.

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