Black-on-White Unimark (Vignelli) Service Signs--Where Are They?

[MHV9218]

One of my favorite eras of subway design were the days of Unimark's Massimo Vignelli and Bob Noorda when signs, using the 1967 color scheme, were set in black Akzidenz-Grotesk on white enamel. The signs are rarer than hen's teeth today, with none surviving in the Transit Museum's collection, a single example at the Vignelli archives in Rochester, and the rest probably hidden around the country or destroyed. I know of one individual who has four of the service signs from the Canal Street IND station, and I'm sure there are others out there who have copies of them. Part of the problem is that not all that many were made in the first place, and then all of them were covered up with multiple layers of decals as the years went on. The 1979 color change meant that bullets had to be covered, but even before that decals were being placed--sometimes still black-on-white, though with misshapen handcut text.

 

This was the model as codified in the Standards Manual:

 

 

Those bullet squares were 1' x 1', with a black bar on top, while other modular pieces were either 2' or greater. This Vignelli Archives photo shows some surviving modules:

 

 

These are some of the signs as installed, here at 59th St. (Joe Testagrose photo):

 

 

And here at Chambers St. (Doug Grotjahn photo):

 

 

As far as I know, the signs were installed at most if not all of the IND 8th Avenue express stations around 1968 (at least as far as Jay St. into Brooklyn), some IND local stations, a handful of BMT line stations with trains served by the Chrystie lines in 1967, and a variety of platforms on the IND Culver and BMT Jamaica lines around 1968. On IRT routes, I'm not aware of any of the original all-black-on-white signs ever being installed, but there were some stations that received signs with white on black text along with white backgrounds for the bullets. That includes 42nd St. on the West Side, perhaps 42nd on the Lex, 96th on the West Side, the Grand Central shuttle. I think those signs are slightly later, from the early 1970s, as they fit the switch from black on white to white on black, along with the 1972 rollsign standards that had white squares for bullets along with black backing for the text.

 

Here's what those looked like. I think that these are actually black enamel signs, not decaled white signs. I could be wrong.

 

(typetoken)

 

Signs got covered up with decals as the years went by, with only the colors still in use staying. Pictured here are both hanging signs, where the black stripe came from the steel bar holding them, and mounted signs, which were painted black up top. At Canal St:

 

 

These are all or almost all originally white modules covered up.

 

 

(Library of Congress photos)

 

At 14th St.:

 

(Steve Zabel photo)

 

From 42nd St, surviving today, one of those combination signs from the IRT lines, itself decaled. Eventually, the decals would switch from Akzidenz-Grotesk to Helvetica as the years passed.

 

(Steven Olsen photo; if anybody is in touch with the seller, I'd buy it for the right price!)

 

And in my collection, a or  sign which I bought like this:

 

 

is really a Vignelli underneath:

 

 

I think most of these signs stayed up until the late-1980s--as late as 1989 or even the early 1990s in some cases--but were finally removed as metal signs were installed in the 1990s and 2000s. Today, as far as I can tell, there are no remaining examples of the original black-on-white signs in the system, with the only exceptions being assorted "Signal," "All Persons Forbidden," and "Ejector Room" signs, and also the abandoned platforms at Bowling Green.

 

That said, many of the signs may still be up, covered under new tin signs, covered under decals, still hanging. Or they're all gone, scrapped. I'm always on the lookout for them, and if anybody has any in their collection they'd think of selling or trading, shoot me a PM. The same goes for signs with the decals on them, as that's a restoration job I don't mind. I'm also interested for those who know where these signs were put up. I'm pretty confident installation was limited, but there also aren't enough photos to really know where they all were. More might have been installed--and there are definitely a bunch of those combination signs, like the IRT ones, that were installed as well. The question is, where'd they all go?

[Frankie12345]

Amazing. I remember those classic old original signs with big subway bullets.

[Lance]

I may be able to answer some of your inquiries there. When the black-on-white Standard signs were installed in the late 60s through the early '70s, the focus was primarily on the routes and lines that would be and were affected by the Chrystie St connection. That's one of the reasons why few if any signs in this design were seen on the IRT routes. The exception may have been Atlantic Av, which was affected by the changing routes on Brighton and 4th Avenue. Another reason why so few black-on-white signs exist is that, as you correctly mentioned, few were created in the first place. By the time the TA would get around to expanding the Unimark sign system, they had already shifted, unofficially at least, to the current white-on-black scheme. That change would become official in the 1980 update to the Graphics Standards manual.

 

As to why so few signs exist today, the answer is quite simple: few people saw the historical significance of the signs when they were removed over the years. It wasn't until the early '90s or so when the MTA tag sales became popular spots to find old signs and other transit memorabilia. Prior to that, all those old things were probably tossed unless someone asked for it.

[MHV9218]

I may be able to answer some of your inquiries there. When the black-on-white Standard signs were installed in the late 60s through the early '70s, the focus was primarily on the routes and lines that would be and were affected by the Chrystie St connection. That's one of the reasons why few if any signs in this design were seen on the IRT routes. The exception may have been Atlantic Av, which was affected by the changing routes on Brighton and 4th Avenue. Another reason why so few black-on-white signs exist is that, as you correctly mentioned, few were created in the first place. By the time the TA would get around to expanding the Unimark sign system, they had already shifted, unofficially at least, to the current white-on-black scheme. That change would become official in the 1980 update to the Graphics Standards manual.

 

As to why so few signs exist today, the answer is quite simple: few people saw the historical significance of the signs when they were removed over the years. It wasn't until the early '90s or so when the MTA tag sales became popular spots to find old signs and other transit memorabilia. Prior to that, all those old things were probably tossed unless someone asked for it.

 

Interesting--do you think Atlantic got service signs, or only entrance/exit and platform signs? It seems to me that many more stations got exit and platform signs than received service signs. On top of that, as the switch to white on black began, many stations received 'split' entrance/exit signs, with white text on black above bullets on white. That was done for a bunch of IRT stations, I believe, like Atlantic, Fulton, W 72nd, W 96th, and others. I wonder how those 'split' signs came about exactly--probably something to do with the R46/IRT SMEE rollsigns from the Standards Manual with white background for bullets. As far as I know, only an incredibly small number of stations received black-on-white pillar signs. There were a few made for 57th St., City Hall, and maybe one or two others, but it seems like by 1972/3 the switch to white-on-black was done for those. I'm not aware of too many others. 

 

I suppose you're right about the disappearance of the signs, as sad as it is for me to admit. I'd like to imagine many are still hanging, tucked beneath newer platform signs, and while there are definitely a few generations of signs still hanging within newer signs (the QBL stations are an example of this), I'm not sure any date as far back as the Unimark signs. I think you're right about the trashing--I've spoken to multiple people with Unimark-era signs (some even the heavy porcelain ones that have sold for thousands) who grabbed theirs out of the trash. Incredible.