GOODBYE OLD FRIEND

AFTER who knows how many decades in service, an ancient Department of Traffic sign (the agency is now the Department of Transportation, and is now mostly interested in bicycle lanes) sign indicating the vicinity of Atlantic Beach, New York, a community in Nassau County just east of Far Rockaway entered by crossing the tolled Atlantic Beach Bridge, has now disappeared, although the iron stanchion and supporting easel is still in place on the eastbound Seagirt Boulevard east of Beach 9th Street. The sign is off white with black lettering, as was the custom for several varieties of traffic signs before all of them were mandated to be green with white lettering. The font is a condensed version of Highway Gothic, a font still in use after a 2010s flirtation with Clearview.

I am unsure if the DOT removed it, as the agency is notorious for removing nonstandard sign designs and let this one go because it was unaware of it in this remote (as NYC neighborhoods go) location. It could have been a local souvenir hunter, or the local youth doing the grim and relentless task of vandalism.

“Seagirt” is an unusual street name. “Girt” is the past participle verb declension of “gird” which means to “bind by a belt” or “to encircle.” It’s most used in the expression “gird your loins” (buck up). Here, we are near the ocean, but not surrounded by it. It’s on a green patch of land punctuated by Bridge Creek, which drains into the ocean. Such patches of greenery are currently being eyed by developers to erect housing, but the ground is likely too marshy here to support heavy structures.

Photos courtesy Christopher C.

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1/15/26