On the Vaunted City Subway Map, Mistakes and Phantom Blocks

[GojiMet86]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/07/nyregion/on-new-york-subway-map-a-wayward-broadway-and-phantom-blocks.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

 

 

On the Vaunted City Subway Map, Mistakes and Phantom Blocks

 

 

By MATT FLEGENHEIMER

 

Published: May 6, 2012

 

The story unfurls along the West Side of the city’s hallowed underground cartography, more than 30 years after a zealous band of mapmakers first converged to reimagine New York’s sprawling jigsaw of subway lines.

 

 

 

Their task was formidable: devise a modern guide to replace the old map, designed by Massimo Vignelli in 1972 with an artist’s touch but a less-than-faithful adherence to the city’s true geography.

Success was claimed. Credit was fought over. Feelings were hurt.

And now it can be told: Mistakes were made.

On the West Side of Manhattan, beginning near Lincoln Center and extending toward the campus of Columbia University, Broadway is seemingly misplaced. It is west of Amsterdam Avenue at West 66th Street when it should be east. It drifts toward West End Avenue near 72nd Street, where it should intersect with Amsterdam. It overtakes West End Avenue north of the avenue’s actual endpoint near West 107th Street, creating several blocks of fictitious Upper West Side real estate.

These unintended inaccuracies exist in current versions of the map — and have in some cases been exacerbated.

“That’s a mea culpa,” said John Tauranac, 72, who presided over the committee charged with redesigning the Vignelli map in 1979, and discovered the errors only a few weeks ago.

He stared down at his loafers, with the map spread out across his coffee table.

“I’m more than embarrassed,” he said softly.

Many New Yorkers have undoubtedly noticed that the subway map has its geographic faults, from peccadilloes like a wayward street to more obvious inaccuracies like the supersize island of Manhattan.

But Mr. Tauranac’s sheepish discovery of the errors has at once rekindled and complicated a long-simmering debate over who deserves credit for the watershed 1979 guide. Michael Hertz, whose firm is credited with designing the initial template for the map, has long chafed at Mr. Tauranac’s calling himself the “design chief” on a project that has garnered numerous accolades, including a commendation from the United States Department of Transportation and the National Endowment of the Arts.

“We’ve had parallel careers,” Mr. Hertz said in a telephone interview. “I design subway maps, and he claims to design subway maps.”

After years of publicizing his role in print, in lectures and on his Web site, Mr. Tauranac has a new strategy that is his most inventive yet, Mr. Hertz said. By taking the blame for the blunders, he said, Mr. Tauranac implicitly assumed credit for the rest. “That’s his shtick,” Mr. Hertz said.

But he appeared in no hurry to take responsibility for the mistakes himself.

“He’s overseeing the project,” Mr. Hertz said, adding that he himself perhaps deserved some blame, but “not as much” as Mr. Tauranac. “I was not an expert on the geography of the city,” he said.

Presented with Mr. Tauranac’s findings, Adam Lisberg, chief spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, said the agency would consider amending future editions of the subway map, provided the changes did not distort its clarity.

But Mr. Lisberg took care to cast the Broadway quirks, particularly those near Lincoln Center, not as errors but as the byproduct of “design decisions” on a map that is not intended to be precise. He said he was not aware of any rider complaints about the West Side geography ever having been recorded.

“This is not a street map,” Mr. Lisberg said. “This is a subway map.”

Nonetheless, those responsible for the oversights were disheartened. Nobu Siraisi, an artistic director for the map in 1979, said that he, like Mr. Tauranac, had never noticed the faulty geography. Indeed, he was reluctant to believe that anyone on the team had made a mistake.

“No, no, no,” said Mr. Siraisi, 77, his voice growing pained, after being told of the errors. He checked for himself, then returned to the telephone.

“There is no justification,” he said.

One gaffe, at least, was amended more than 30 years ago. On a set of proof sheets printed during the design process, Mr. Hertz said, Manhattan had been spelled with only one “t.” No copies ever reached customers’ hands, he said, adding that he believed Mr. Siraisi was the culprit for the misspelling.

The most egregious error, perhaps, is the treatment of West End Avenue near West 110th Street, mere blocks from Mr. Tauranac’s apartment. Though the avenue is subsumed by Broadway near West 107th Street, the 1979 map incorrectly showed the two merging three blocks north, at the station entrance for the No. 1 train. On the current map, West End Avenue has inexplicably been extended to around West 116th Street, forging roughly nine blocks of phantom terrain.

Pedestrians on Broadway in this area can stumble upon an Ivy League university or gaze through the windows of Tom’s Restaurant, of “Seinfeld” fame. They can find a copy of “Pride and Prejudice” for $2 at a stand on West 112th Street, and, four blocks south, a taco for 50 cents more. They can even sip mojitos at Havana Central at the West End, near West 114th Street.

But they will never find West End Avenue between Broadway and Riverside Drive.

Mr. Tauranac, who has for years assailed Mr. Vignelli for such inaccuracies as having Bowling Green north of Rector Street, said the revelations had forced him to re-evaluate his harsh judgments of Mr. Vignelli, 81. “It really has dulled my attack, that’s for sure,” Mr. Tauranac said.

Moments later, he retrieved from his office the May 2008 copy of Men’s Vogue, featuring an updated Vignelli map “every bit as terrible a map as he designed in 1972,” to Mr. Tauranac’s eye.

“I’m happy to see that he’s mellowing,” Mr. Vignelli said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A version of this article appeared in print on May 7, 2012, on page A16 of the New York edition with the headline: On the Vaunted City Subway Map, Mistakes and Phantom Blocks.

[Eric B]

I didn't even know Tauranac still made his maps, with the characteristic hollow route bullets built into the line guage. I always liked those, and didn't realize for a long time that he designed the official map, and had thought it would be nice if they switched to bis new design.

(Wonder if he will ever go to individual route line drawings on the trunk lines).

[Tokkemon]

Just re-design it with a to-scale base already!