WHEN I stepped outdoors for a bit of fresh air in this October of perpetual sunshine and 75 degrees, I didn’t expect to get the pleasant surprise that I got. For years I have complained about the state of street signage in Little Neck, one of NYC’s easternmost redoubts and an area the Department of Transportation seemingly forgot. Signs were missing or sun bleached into unreadability. Seemingly overnight…I found they had finally been replaced.
This is the current state of the art in NYC street signage. The DOT began a complete street sign replacement program in 2011, changing signs formerly in capitals to upper and lower case, even the “Av,” “St” and “Rd” designations, even on the numbered streets. For about five years, the font was switched from Highway Gothic to Clearview, a much inferior font in my opinion. The DOT later relented and went back to Highway Gothic, but retained upper and lower case.
I must say, I wandered over to Little Neck Parkway and 43rd Avenue, to shoot a pair of sun bleached signs from the 1980s and put them on this page for contrast. But they had finally been replaced!
The DOT didn’t get everything, and this pair of 1980s signs is still there. You can see a wider variety of Highway Gothic on the number, which isn’t used anymore (I prefer this width) and everything’s in all caps. Another difference is two white stripes at the top and bottom that are not in the newer signs.
If you go back further, between 1964 and 1983 vinyl and metal signs that were in off white with blue letters were deployed in Queens, but very few of those are left; the only ones I’m aware of now are on 65th Crescent in Fresh Meadows.
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10/22/24
3 comments
Using the upper and lower cases looks better than using just upper case.
But who is this Westmoreland?
I hope it’s NOT the William Westmoreland who commanded all US forces in Vietnam! Right up to the end, with more than a half-million troops in country, he kept on promising he could win the war “with just a few more divisions”. Whew!
Regarding sun bleached signs, I collected a number of parking tickets while going to PA school at Coney Island Hospital in the mid-90’s. The alternate side of the street parking signs had been red on a white background. What remained was pure white! I soon realized that if there was more than one empty space, it was because all the locals hadn’t moved their cars yet.