A couple of years ago, I walked the underground passageway beneath 6th Avenue in Rockefeller Center; you can walk from 42nd 47th Street all the way to 5th Avenue and 50th Street, at the Atlas statue across from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, without having to enter the subway at all. There are a number of blue and white signs in the Avant-Garde font, which really got a workout in the 1970s and 1980s but is a bit passé today (there was a question about the font on a sign at the old Staten Island Teleport in yesterday’s post, and someone though it was Avant Garde, but it’s not.) The Avant Garde font was drawn by type designer Herbert F. Lubalin to be used in a now-defunct magazine of the same name:
From January 1968 through July 1971, Ginzburg published Avant Garde. While it could not be termed obscene, it was filled with creative imagery often caustically critical of American society and government, sexual themes, and (for the time) crude language. One cover featured a naked pregnant woman; another had a parody of Willard’s famous patriotic painting, “The Spirit of ’76”, with a woman and a Black man. [wikipedia]
At the same time, there was a pop group called the Avant Garde and they had a modest hit called “Naturally Stoned.” The singer was none other than future game show host Chuck Woolery.
I’d say the signs go back to the 1980s; for all I know, they have been replaced by now. Metro Cards, used for subway fares, were introduced in the early 1990s and became universal in 1997; now, they are being phased out and will be replaced by the OMNY card reading system in 2024. So this sign represents two prior generations of fare technology (before tokens were introduced, tickets or nickels were used for admittance).
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8/21/23