Christoph Niemann's adorably illustrated story about his sons' obsession with the NYC Subway System [via kottke] reminded me of the pictures I took last summer at the NYC Transit Museum.
The best part of the subterranean museum is by far the tracks with dozens of retired subway cars dating back to the old El lines. It's like a giant jungle gym that adults are actually allowed into, complete with an amazing collection vintage ads, such as:
Miss Subways was a sort of print-ad American Idol-style beauty pageant for NYC subway-riding women only, which went on from 1941 through 1976 according to wikipedia. Ads like this ran in the subways, and riders called in to vote on their favorite subway-riding gal. Some things never change!
Since there's no branding on this poster, I'm not sure if it's an advertisement or a public service announcement for lonely male subway riders. You know, the types that can nowadays be found on missed connections.
I don't think any comment is needed on this on, huh?
The predecessors to the current ho-hum SubTalk posters brought much more interesting information than how many people "saw something and said something" last year. Instead they provided juicy transit factoids, such as the location of the deepest part of the subway, then the BRT Broadway as it passed under the East River. These days the BRT Broadway line is the N/R/W, and the deepest part of the subway system is the 191st Street Station on the 1/9.
Subway nerds who can't get down to the Transit Museum can always get their fix at wikipedia, which has exhaustive subway info, and NYCsubway.org, which seems to have a photo of every train ever to set its wheels on the tracks of the NYC subway system.
[...] – bookmarked by 3 members originally found by gaastra34 on 2008-07-31 vintage NYC Subway ads http://kenspeckle.net/blog/2008/07/12/vintage-nyc-subway-ads/ – bookmarked by 2 members originally [...]