If you recall, last week Forgotten NY presented a photo of ancient Staten Island street signs I discovered in Tottenville at Jacob(s) Street and Bedell Avenue in 1999. I had shot it from a bad sun angle, though, and knew I should get a better shot which I did the next time I encountered it. Unfortunately at the time I made up the page the better shot had been lost and I presumed lost for good; but a look at some of the Forgotten New York archives and lo and behold, the better one turned up, shown here.
These small yellow and black signs identified streets in Staten Island from the 1910s into the 1960s. In the 1950s, some began to be supplanted by metal and enamel signs, and in the 1960s vinyl signs took over. Through all those incarnations, the signs were yellow with black lettering. Finally, in about 1984, the current green and white scheme was adopted.
Many of these signs were on freestanding iron posts and were positioned perpendicularly, like this, an arrangement not used for NYC street signs in recent decades. Before the 1950s, though, Queens street signs were also positioned like this. Note the small knob, or finial, at the top of the pole. These signs were also installed on telephone poles, supported by a bracket.
A quartet of these signs, mounted on two poles, were retained in Richmondtown Restoration at the center of Staten Island until about 15 years ago, when at first one pole disappeared, then another. I don’t know what happened; perhaps trucks or other vehicles took them out, or souvenir hunters got them.
I had high hopes that this sign, on Cubberly Place and Oakley Place in New Dorp could be preserved. Why? it was actually positioned on a lawn, ostensibly private property, so I hoped the Department of Transportation wouldn’t remove it. (how foolish was that notion.) The DOT may have gotten it, or souvenir hunters, again. It probably had an Oakley Place sign partner, since the top is “unfinished” without the finial.
There was one more such sign I saw in my travels. It was at Ocean Terrace and Portsmouth Avenue in Todt Hill, but that was in the 1980s, and it was long gone by the time I returned while getting images for Forgotten NY.
Thus, the only signs of this type left are in private collections, if they exist at all.
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