BusTalk

[Tony A]

I remember that strike and Mike Quill, who railed against "Mayor Lindsley" (as he derisively called him) at his news conferences. Meanwhile I was car-pooling (and walking a lot) to get from home in Brooklyn to school (Fordham) in the Bronx.

[Hart Bus]

[Mr. Linsky]

Someone forgot to remind the photographer that the focus of the image below taken in 1949 was supposed to be of the bus but, luckily, enough of it is visible to tell you that it's fleet #928 - a 1947 44 passenger GM Coach Model TDH 4507 and one of twenty five likenesses numbered 926 to 950 operating for Green Bus Lines, Inc., then of Cornell Park, New York.

#928, which is traveling Queens Boulevard and passing 76th. Road in Forest Hills on its way from South Jamaica to 2nd. Avenue and 60th. Street in Manhattan on the Q60 line, is shown in its original factory paint job which, in only a matter of weeks or months after the shot was taken, would be updated to the company's newly adopted angel wings and bib design in apple green and cream.

While seven of these 4507's were transferred to commonly owned Jamaica Buses in 1962, #928 wasn't one of them and probably met its maker at the time.

The photo brings back great personal memories for me; many of the kids that I palled out and went to school with lived in the apartments in the background and the Halpern mentioned in the re-elect sign attached to the first building was Seymour Halpern - a very close friend of my father.

For the more morbid among us, the sign on the vacant lot just behind the bus announces the forthcoming arrival of the new home of Schwartz Brothers Funeral Chapels.

Photo courtesy of 'iconpix' and is available on eBay as item # 350904014668.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York

[Mr. Linsky]

It's lunchtime on a chilly day in February 1944 as we see numbers of patriotic New Yorkers queuing up to buy U.S. War Bonds at the corner of Manhattan's 42nd. Street and Madison Avenue (the sales kiosk, in the form of an Army Jeep, is parked on the 42nd. Street side against the wall of a National City Bank branch).

Seen traveling along Madison Avenue on the #2 line is fleet # 464 - a 1939 40 passenger Yellow Coach Model 740 operating for the New York City Omnibus Corporation affiliate Madison Avenue Coach Company.

It was a time when both pre war De Soto SkyViews and ornate Arc Deco trimmed Checker taxis dominated the Big Apple's highways and bi-ways.

Photo courtesy of 'djsrelics' and is available on eBay as item # 151145853316.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York

[Hankg42]

In the mid to late 1970s, after exiting the express bus from Staten Island on that corner, I would go in that door on the corner to get a coffee and a donut or roll, as it was a small coffee stop. I'm sure what was the bank had been sectioned off into multiple spaces. I believe today a jewelry store occupies that same space.

[Mr. Linsky]

Very little has been mentioned about another major bus operation in the New York City of yore (albeit a school bus company) and that would be Children's Bus Service, Inc (CBS) of Brooklyn.

CBS, established by a number of smaller operators in 1919 in an effort to gain long term contracts with the city's Board of Education encompassing service in the five boroughs, remained the mainstay until the summer of 1965 when overwhelming financial burdens forced the company out of business.

The ensuing years for what business CBS abandoned become rather complicated but do include Westchester interests and a tie into Green Bus Line affiliates Command Bus Company, Pioneer Bus Company and Varsity Coach.

Shown below is an interesting White Motor Company ad in a 1935 issue of Bus Transportation Magazine boasting the sale of a record 125 new school buses to the company.

Photo courtesy of '4509bus' and is available at eBay as item # 350910913365.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York

[Q65A]

Thanks for that "blast from the past", Mr. L!
When I was in elementary school, CBS was my bus company (c.1962-63).
My regular bus was a mid-50's International S-series chassis equipped with a Superior Coach body painted pale green and cream (yes, I am older than the now-standard "school bus yellow" paint job )
Varsity Bus Service soon took over my bus route. At that time, they ran mostly GMC S4000 chassis fitted with "high-headroom" Superior Coach or Wayne bodies (painted in a pale yellow with small amounts of red trim). These Jimmies had V-6 gas engines and 4-speed manual trannies (no Allisons in most school buses back in those days). I was fascinated watching our bus driver upshift that SPicer or New Process box as our bus worked its way westbound on 71st Avenue, then southbound on 150th Street, so much so that I was determined to learn how to "drive a stick". Now almost 50 years later, I still have a manual tranny in my Ford pickup.

[Mr. Linsky]

Bob,

Thanks,

You can believe me when I tell you that photos of Children's Bus Service equipment is elusive at best but I'm still looking for more.

In spite of the boroughs wide role that CBS played in its prime, private operators still had a hand in the business in New York.

Green Line in particular served John Adams, Woodrow Wilson, Richmond Hill, Forest Hills and Far Rockaway high schools.

I remember that even in the late fifties the service from Union Turnpike in Kew Gardens to Forest Hills was relegated to the company's pre war Macks and that the kids used to joke about them especially when they didn't make it all the way!

Good memories though.

Regards,

Mr. 'L'

[Mr. Linsky]

The rain looks as though it's coming down in buckets in this wonderful 1940 photo of a typical day in midtown Manhattan.

Passing the main branch of the New York Public Library at 42nd. Street on
Fifth Avenue and heading north on one of a number of routes is a trademark Yellow Coach Model 735 double decker of the 'Queen Mary' class circa mid thirties operating for the Fifth Avenue Coach Company (FACCO).

Traveling in the opposite direction toward Washington Square is an ancient FACCO built Model 2L circa mid twenties (a bus that I would rather not have been sitting on the upper deck of during a sudden sharp turn!).

Aside from the buses, the cars of the era have always fascinated me and especially the colorful New York cabs as evidenced by the ornate Art Deco trimmed Checker (center foreground).

Another great slice of Big Apple history.

Photo credit within frame.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York

[N4 Jamaica]

Is that an outdoor, curving stairway on the southbound bus? No inside stairway?
Joe McMahon

[Mr. Linsky]

[Mr. Linsky]

The late forties into the early fifties were a time of testing for the city's Board of Transportation and any number of leased demonstrators could be seen wandering the streets of the five boroughs and made up of numbers of Mack models, along with ACF's, Twin Coaches including their rendition of an artic known as a 'Super-Twin and even a GM TDH 5103 wide bodied job that also saw demo service with a number of Queens private lines.

Pictured below in two 1949 poses is fleet #3 - a Twin Coach 50 passenger Model 50-S with the upper image taken on Manhattan's First Avenue at 49th. Street (my how that neighborhood has changed) and the lower frame captured at St. George in Staten Island.

While the standard Twin Model 50-S carried two underfloor amidships engines, #3 arrived in New York powered by a single 200 hp gasoline plant as was specified by the city.

#3's trials were successful but led to no additional purchases of Twin Coach equipment.

Both images courtesy of 'Vintage-Vault75' and are available at eBay as items 181252920152 and 171164442065 respectively.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York

[Mr. Linsky]

It's a warm day sometime in 1949 along Roosevelt Avenue in northern Queens as we see fleet # 4117 - a 1949 43 passenger GM Coach Model TDH 4510 and one of 500 likenesses numbered 4000 to 4499 operating for the then City of New York Board of Transportation's (BoT) Brooklyn Bus Division.

The BoT was in dire need of new buses to help complete traction changeover in Brooklyn and was impressed with favorable reports on a recently acquired fleet of GM TDH 4507's by the Queens Bus Division and looked toward that manufacturer's all new TDH 4509 scheduled for debut in early 1949.

However, the municipality required a 4509 with fewer seats and wider aisles for greater capacity and, in view of the sizable order, GM produced its first 102 inch wide coach and dubbed it as a TDH 4510 built exclusively for New York City (it must be noted here that while the State of New York prohibited any bus wider than 96 inches on its highways at the time, a city home rule amendment took precedence in the matter).

#4117 appears to be shiny new (albeit with its front bumper already christened) as it stands idle at a curb with no apparent route indication.

Only one TDH 4510 survives and was originally a demonstrator built to N.Y. specs that finally wound up with Pacific Electric and eventually fell in to private hands.

Photo courtesy of 'Vintage-Vault75' and is available at eBay as item # 181252919086.

Mr. Linsky - Green Bus Lines, Inc., Jamaica, New York

[NorthShore]

This bus was probably assigned to the B-72 Junction Blvd. This route did have a Roosevelt Ave. short turn.

[Tony A]

I remember riding the 4510s every day to and from school on the B13 Crescent St. route in the late 50s. Crescent was a very narrow 2 way street with parking on both sides on several blocks, and if 2 buses approached from opposite directions one had to wait at the corner for the other to get through the block. The bus was empty most of the day, except for around 8AM and after 3PM when it was jammed with high-schoolers traveling to and from Franklin K. Lane High School.