Tag Archives: Street Signs

Street Signs New York City – 1962

What Happened To Those Old Street Signs?

From the Look Magazine photo archive comes this photograph taken by Philip Harrington in 1962 showing the street signs at the intersection of Nassau and Pine Streets.

The humpback street signs which had served New York City for about 50 years were discontinued over the next few years and replaced by rectangular yellow signs with black letters. Those signs lasted until the early 1980’s when they were taken down.

The old elegant blue street signs with white serif lettering ended up being bought en masse by Stamford House Wrecking in Stamford, CT in the 1970’s Continue reading →

Old New York In Photos #27 – Fifth Avenue Looking North From 51st Street – 1913

Permanent Street Signs in New York

Looking Above Street Level

There is nothing extraordinary about 1113 First Avenue, the building at the northwest corner of 61st Street and First Avenue. A late 19th century five story walk-up building with a restaurant at ground level. But if you look up to the corner between the second and third floors you will see the street name etched in stone and attached to the building, circled in red in the photo above.

The rectilinear street grid layout imposed upon Manhattan at the beginning of the nineteenth century assured the builder of this building that it would be located at 61st street and First Avenue seemingly forever.

Before the twentieth century street signs were not at every corner. There were in fact few street signs in New York and they were usually at major intersections or the nicer parts of town. Continue reading →

Stuff Nobody Cares About

A not so random collection of observations about things you should care about