FNY Correspondent Gary Fonville:
This is what I believe to be a sign that dates from the White Plains Road line’s construction around 1915. The only other extant vintage IRT sign still displayed is over the escalator at the President Street station on the 2 and 5 lines , and the reason why it has survived and hasn’t been appropriated is because it’s over a moving elevator in direct eyesight of the station agent.
[Not sure — I don’t think the IRT was using blue enamel signs at the very beginning, though I could be wrong. –ed.]
7/16/15
5 comments
I used to see those blue “Do not lean over edge of platform” signs all over the system, or at least all over the IRT. It’s hard to believe they are all gone except that one.
There is a very old, almost illegible and invisible, sign on the downtown platform at 33 Street station on the 6, across the tracks on the middle poles almost directly opposite the turnstiles. It warns about the hazard of getting on the tracks, and is signed Interborough Rapid Transit.
The lettering is white on black and it’s in a sort of Wild West poster font – I don’t know the name of the typeface.
One of the originals
Here is a 2008 video of a ride on the IRT White Plains Line from Gun Hill Road [roughly 210th Street] to 241st Street in the Wakefield area, passing through Nereid Avenue station [238th Street]. All of the station signs — ALL of them — are White-on-Blue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbS9zW_LY0I&feature=related
Many apologies: my previous comment copied the wrong URL link. Here (hopefully) is the correct one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgN9uARjHrg&feature=related
81-year-old eyeballs don’t work too well….
Anyway, all the signs are White-on-Blue!