Friday, September 1, 2023

Wallet Card with some transit-related signage

I got a few interesting MTA (subway and bus) signage photos in my recent walks.

These two signs are near the Williamsburg Bridge Plaza Bus Terminal, under the overpass to the bridge. The top one has the 1968-1994 MTA logo that is still fairly common to see today. However, it is the very old, rusted out speed limit sign that I found interesting. Unfortunately, the presence of construction vehicles blocking the sign made it hard to get close enough for a good photo.

Moving to subways, in the Borough Hall subway station in Brooklyn you can find some long-shuttered bank teller windows, with the words Commuter Banking visible. This was operated by the Brooklyn Savings Bank from the late 1960s to the early 1980s. This was located within the fare zone so you couldn't just walk in from the street to do your banking, which probably limited it's effectiveness. Brooklyn Savings Bank closed in 1981.
Here is the prior MTA logo, when it was still just the TA. This logo was only used from 1962-1968, and is very unusual to find today. This one is at the 4th Avenue-Garfield Place substation.
Last year I had gotten a similar photo at a substation near Coney Island, but from very far away and it didn't come out well. I unexpectedly ended up at that substation again this time, and from another angle, and was able to get a much better photo this time. These might be the only remnants left of the rather stylish 1960s NYCTA logo.
I still managed to get a really bad photo of a cool substation sign this time, however. The Brighton-E. 15th Street substation was an "Urban Mass Transportation Project". Projects like these nationwide were funded by the Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964, and signs like this one were put up at the time. Unfortunately, due to the fence and a lot of people around (this is a residential neighborhood), I didn't want to take the time to suspiciously go up to the fence and manipulate my card into a photo. It's the metal sign with the red stripe in the middle.

Photographer Ben Hagen took a much better photo a few years ago:


 And here is an example of what they looked at when they were first put up. (Source - Vanderbilt Cup Races blog).



1 comment:

  1. That old substation looks like it's seen better days. Is it still in use?

    ReplyDelete