BusTalk

[NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629]

Sad that everything is the view* (1979) no longer exists (since 9/11).....

https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?155866

*(Note the interesting "TDI/WINSTON" placard carried on the dash of #8473**; TDI posters festooned commuter rail/rapid transit stations and platforms for ages (also, the ferry terminals)

**Note, also, the empty side signbox, and no ad carried on #8473's rear batwing.......

(Personal note: When this photo was taken, Your's Truly was only working on "The Street" some five months; the times I commuted on the PATH tubes, I passed through this now-vanished area twice a day)

[NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629]

Broadway & 34th St., 1975*.....

https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?155845

(courtesy: nycsubway.org)

*(any clues on the bus on the left?)

[NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629]

Park Row, 1976......

https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?155530

(courtesy: nycsubway.org)

[NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629]

5th Avenue & 34th St., 1974 (note the ad placard for the new game show "DEALER'S CHOICE" on 5 on #6740's dash)

It COULD only be my eyes, but............it seems to me that the side roller sign on #6740 is not displaying the same route number which is displayed on the front roller curtain (#15).....

https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?155617

(courtesy: nycsubway.org)

[NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629]

Contradicting front and side signs being displayed here by Fishbowl #8486, on a bright, sunny day back in 1974.....

https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?154085

(courtesy: nycsubway.org)

[W.B. Fishbowl]

[W.B. Fishbowl]

[W.B. Fishbowl]

[NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629]

W.B.:

Thanks, as usual, for your in-depth, highly-informative responses; always greatly appreciated!

I'm glad to see my ol' eyes weren't deceiving me in that photo of #6740; route changes, branches, mergings, etc. over the years indeed make for a quite fascinating (and, sometimes, CONFUSING) "study" of the routes of decades past.

Also, given what little you can read on the front sign of that "mystery" Fishbowl seen in the photo snapped at Broadway & 34th St., I think you are correct, and that it is an NYU bus.

IMHO, I think that, for us older fellows, the "classic" era of "Noo Yawk" buses began to draw to a close as the last Fishbowls and Flexies were vanishing; after the RTS was retired, that, to Your's Truly, signaled the END of "classic" buses in the City.

As with NJT's buses in my area, all the fun has gone; there is nothing that interests me, and nothing I'd want to ride on......I'm more than happy with my memories of REAL buses.....

"NYO"

[NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629]

Oversized milk cartons?

Giant shoe boxes?

Take yer pick!

https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?156353

https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?157355

(courtesy: nycsubway.org)

[NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629]

"INVASION OF THE MUTANT" SHOE BOXES", coming soon to a theatre near you! (Rated "B" for "BLAH"!!!!!!!!!!!)

https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?156352

(courtesy: nycsubway.org)

[NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629]

.....and now....for a return to the long-ago days when BUSES didn't resemble giant insects, bland boxes, or oversized mutant creatures.......

http://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?153357

(courtesy: nycsubway.org)

[W.B. Fishbowl]

[NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629]

W.B.:

Agreed!

Today's hi-tech NTT subway equipment simply does not have the character and appeal that the old trains did, SMEEs and prewar.

Long gone are the days when each division had its own distinctive equipment and character (that began to vanish with the Chrystie St. connection in 1967)

I remember, young as I was, the complex ganglia of piping and conduits found in the Lo-V's vestibules (also, the H&M "Black" cars); the prewar trains growled , snarled, and hummed, and always with the happy chuckling of compressors.

The SMEE cars were all classics, and those that remained in service as "Redbirds" in later years, were not stripped of their traditional standee straps, as were all the other older rebuilt/rehabbed cars (I HATED the "new improved" interior paint for the Brightliners, and HATED the removal of the end roller signs, which were replaced by those asinine little electronic signs!)

In the 1972 photo at Washington Plaza, note the one prewar IND car repainted in the "Ronan" scheme.....I NEVER liked that scheme on ANY equipment, and they looked TOTALLY out-of-place on the remaining prewar equipment. Thankfully, only a small group of prewar cars, then assigned to the BMT' astern Division, were so repainted.

I much, much preferred the gritty, grimy, almost-black that most of the cars wore; in later years, whn the "Tee-Yay" began washing down equipment, the long-invisible "CITY OF NEW YORK" lettering, applied to veteran prewar IND cars when new, re-appeared from underneath decades of grime and steel dust.

The subway stations, too, leave me cold; no more "traditional" turnstiles or old-style change booths; too many stations now, especially in areas where the fare control is located, now have all the warmth and color of a shopping mall, or a hospital waiting room.

(the revamped IRT Bowling Green station, with its hideous red tile and flying saucer seating, never ceased to turn me off; so much beautiful, historic tiling and mosaics were stupidly trashed when the station was "improved" in the mid-70's)

As with the buses of years back, I MUCH prefer my memories of the "olden days"......

[NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629]

Stillwell Avenue, 1977*.

Today, 44 years later, Fishbowls and prewar IND cars have long since disappeared from the everyday "Noo Yawk" scene.

1977 also marked the final year for the last remaining prewar cars in the MTA fleet; ironically, these IND cars made their final runs on the BMT.

Appropriate, in a way, when you realize that the original R-1 cars underwent trials on the BMT's Sea Beach line, prior to the opening of the first section of the 8th Avenue Subway, in 1932......

https://www.nycsubway.org/perl/show?154789

(courtesy: nycsubway.org)

*Note, on the left, the old streetcar line pole, out of use since the last B&QT streetcars ran to Coney, in the 1950's.