Outdated subway signs that still point the way

There are regular subway signs, and then there are the ones that give clear directions—in these cases, using names no longer widely used.

The Port Authority Building, the Art Deco structure built in 1932 that stretches from 14th to 15th Streets on Eighth Avenue, must have been important; it scored its own sign in the station at that corner.

Google bought it in 2010, and it now serves as their famous New York City headquarters. I wonder what old-school Port Authority employees would think of the trick doors in the library and Lego play area.

Here’s a peek inside, courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.

I’d never heard of the B and D trains referred to as “concourse trains.”

But they made up a branch of the IND called the Concourse Line, opened in 1933 and running from 145th Street (where the photo was located) and 205th Street in the Bronx, under the Grand Concourse.

Penn Railroad sounds quaint, but it’s easy enough to decipher. I wonder how many tourists and new New Yorkers know what BMT and H&M mean—and no, it certainly has nothing to do with the store!

A faded subway sign under the Chrysler Building

The Chrysler Building is one of those iconic city structures with its own subway entrance—like the New York Life building on 23rd Street and the KMart (formerly Wanamaker’s) at Astor Place.

Which means that once you get off the 4, 5, or 6 train at Lexington Avenue and 42nd Street, you can follow a passageway that takes you through a basement arcade containing a handful of stores, to a staircase for the lobby.

There’s still a barber shop in that sub-lobby arcade, and a locksmith, and the Lexler Deli (a wonderful hybrid name!). But I’m sorry to say that the efficiently titled Chrysler Beauty Salon is no longer.

It was probably replaced by the Duane Reade down there. . . .

A vintage subway sign hangs on in the Village

It’s been more than a year since this old-school sign was uncovered after the removal of a newsstand in front of a subway entrance at Sixth Avenue and West Fourth Street (Gothamist scored the details in September 2011.)

Amazingly, the MTA hasn’t yet covered the slightly tattered but very charming sign. Could it be here to stay—a ghost from New York’s transit past reminding riders that the A, C, and E used to be part of the Independent Subway System, opened in 1932?

The IND ran as a separate network from the privately owned IRT and BMT lines for eight years, until all three lines merged into one enormous city-run system in 1940.

Ghostly subway signage at Chambers Street

Time stands still at the Chambers Street J and Z station.

This deteriorated stop on the BMT, under the Manhattan Municipal Building, is like a subterranean ghost town. Its platforms are mostly empty, and paint peels while water drips from the ceiling.

But there’s one upside to the terrible neglect: No one has bothered to paint over the old-school IRT Lexington Avenue signs on several beams.

Most of the signs—1960s or 1970s maybe?—are much more faded than this one. They once pointed the way to the busier, tidier Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall 6 train station connected via a passageway.

Old-school Manhattan subway signage

Beneath the Manhattan Municipal Building’s soaring vaulted ceiling is this original sign for the stairs to the BMT (aka, the J and Z) Chambers Street station.

A wonderful vintage lantern-like sign still lights the way at the entrance to the Fulton Street IRT station downtown.

Not all old-timey subway signs are charming. This 1970s-style sign announces the entrance to the Hunter College-68th Street IRT station.

Could this is where the Subway sandwich got the inspiration for their logo? The arrow looks awfully similar.

Vintage subway signage at a Sixth Avenue station

The Sixth Avenue and 14th Street station opened in 1940—a busy, grimy, not particularly inspiring or attractive stop connecting the F and M to the L, 1, 2, and 3 trains.

But it does have terrific old-school mosaic signs that make you feel like you’re back in midcentury Manhattan.

Like this one, directing you toward the Independent Subway—today’s Sixth Avenue and Eighth Avenue lines.

Transferring to the BMT Lines—the initials stood for Brooklyn Manhattan Transit, the company that once oversaw the L (plus the J, M, N, Q, and R trains)—is easy with this helpful arrow.

Even better is this mosaic telling travelers how to get to the Hudson and Manhattan Railroad, aka today’s PATH, which shares an entrance to the station. When was the last time you heard the PATH referred to as the H&M?

Is this the oldest sign in a city subway station?

This torn, faded anti-littering poster is still adhered to a beam between the F and G tracks at the Seventh Avenue station in Park Slope.

“Litter Is a Hazard Here” it reads, an arrow pointing to the tracks. Apparently, riders decades ago were just as likely to toss trash on the tracks as riders are today.

The sign is part of a series of “Subway Sun” messages first launched by the IRT in the teens, according to this Princeton University Library blog, which also provides a little backstory and images of other Subway Sun posters.

So how old is the Park Slope sign? I’m guessing it dates to the 1940s, and it just might be older than these vintage signs found in another Brooklyn F station that warn riders not to spit or lean over toward the tracks.

Old-school subway signs hiding in plain sight

The MTA obscures them with ongoing construction, cheap tiles, and ugly pipes and wires. But vintage subway infrastructure remains in many stations . . . if you look closely enough.

Most of the original detail in the 6 station at Lexington Avenue and 103rd Street, opened in 1918, disappeared after a renovation. But somehow this Downtown Trains mosaic survived.

The lovely Ionic columns and “exit to street” sign framing this exit from the IRT Fulton Street station are like archeological ruins from another era, hard to detect among the construction walls and modern turnstiles.

Imagine all the magazines and newspapers sold over the years at what was once a newsstand at the 77th Street R station in Bay Ridge.

The station—and presumably the newsstand—opened in 1916, but it’s long since been tiled over.

Old-school subway signage

The MTA should bring back some of these vintage posts and signs—they’re such a cool throwback to old New York. These lantern-like beacons guard the Fifth Avenue and 59th Street station:

Vintage signage on the New York Life building, on Park Avenue South—important enough to have its own subway entrance. Interborough Rapid Transit is today’s 4, 5, and 6 line.

I hope the MTA does not replace or tidy up this weathered, slightly rusted subway post, in Inwood:

Dear MTA, please don’t take these signs down

Brooklyn’s narrow York Street subway station is home to a couple of vintage signs that deserve a little love.

“No Smoking, Spitting” is pretty rough around the edges; looks like it dates from the 1940s or 1950s—and probably hasn’t been enforced since then:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love that someone at the MTA at one time thought it necessary to put this next sign up.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you climb the stairs out of the Financial District’s Nassau Street station, you’re greeted by these old-school directions. The barber shop is still there, but I didn’t see a beauty salon.