Bob Mulero, who usually finds remaining ancient Streetlights of New York City, found this vintage hand-drawn sign on one of the pillars in the IRT Chambers Street station, serving the #1, 2 and 3 trains.
The station opened on July 1, 1918; its mosaics feature Kings College, which was once downtown but expanded into Columbia University when it moved north to the Morningside Heights neighborhood in 1896.
Likely, the station is undergoing periodic painting, and previous layers of paint need to be stripped off first; on this occasion, the sign was uncovered. It might be an original from 1918.
10/14/15
7 comments
Why is it spelled CHAMB’RS instead of CHAMBERS?
Not enough room on the pillar
OK, I’ll buy that, but if I was the boss I’d have told the painter to print skinner. Whatever it was, I love oddities and a mystery. Thanks
1000 dollars on ebay
I remember those particular signs (and especially the apostrophe) from when I was a kid. I’m 49 now.
For years a directional sign on one of the pillars at the Chambers Street platform that had IRT LInes with an arrow was re-written with a magic marker a D and Y making it read Dirty Lines! Early 1960’s graffiti!
I remember those signs when I was a kid in the late 1960s and early 1970s…I called the station “Chmibers Street,” in honor of the odd signs.
There was a terrific bookstore on Chambers between West Broadway and Church, called Ruby’s, which went out of business when the owners retired to Florida. They left behind a nice note in the door for their devoted fans.
Nearby was the Job Lot Trading Company/The Pushcart on Church Street, which was a two-floor store that sold various things…it was decorated like Lower East Side pushcarts, with fake street signs and bishop’s crook lamppost tops. That too is gone, sadly.