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New York's Batwing Buses

 
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MaBSTOA 15



Age: 70
Joined: 27 Feb 2013
Posts: 1055

PostPosted: Mon Aug 16, 2021 8:57 pm    Post subject: New York's Batwing Buses Reply with quote

New York's fabled "bat-wing" buses a pictorial history...

The first prototype was MaBSTOA's #3472, TDH-5303. Wings applied in 1964.
#s 5516-5525; MaBSTOA; TDH-5303; 1964-1965
#s 6701-6900; MaBSTOA; TDH-5303; 1965
#s 8001-8202; NYCTA; TDH-5303; 1966-1967 with a/c
#s 8301-8700; MaBSTOA; TDH-5303; 1966-1967 with a/c
#s 8829-8878; NYCTA; T6H-5305A; 1968 with a/c
# 7753; MaBSTOA; FLX 53102-6-1; 1974 with a/c **
# 631; MaBSTOA; FLX 53102-8-1; 1980

** = perhaps the entire series in this group (7500-7659 = NYCTA; 7700-7937 = MaBSTOA) were intended to have batwings since they did not have standee windows and several roof line attachments appear along the roof line where the wings would be attached as well as the mid coach clearance light is not position on the roof line but at the same heights as the top of the window right before the rear door and middle window on the street side. Something to think about!



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MaBSTOA 15



Age: 70
Joined: 27 Feb 2013
Posts: 1055

PostPosted: Mon Aug 16, 2021 9:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

New York's fabled "bat-wing" buses a pictorial history...

The first prototype was MaBSTOA's #3472, TDH-5303. Wings applied in 1964.
#s 5516-5525; MaBSTOA; TDH-5303; 1964-1965
#s 6701-6900; MaBSTOA; TDH-5303; 1965
#s 8001-8202; NYCTA; TDH-5303; 1966-1967 with a/c
#s 8301-8700; MaBSTOA; TDH-5303; 1966-1967 with a/c
#s 8829-8878; NYCTA; T6H-5305A; 1968 with a/c
# 7753; MaBSTOA; FLX 53102-6-1; 1974 with a/c **
# 631; MaBSTOA; FLX 53102-8-1; 1980

** = perhaps the entire series in this group (7500-7659 = NYCTA; 7700-7937 = MaBSTOA) were intended to have batwings since they did not have standee windows and several roof line attachments appear along the roof line where the wings would be attached as well as the mid coach clearance light is not position on the roof line but at the same heights as the top of the window right before the rear door and middle window on the street side. Something to think about!



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MaBSTOA 15



Age: 70
Joined: 27 Feb 2013
Posts: 1055

PostPosted: Mon Aug 16, 2021 9:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

New York's fabled "bat-wing" buses a pictorial history...

The first prototype was MaBSTOA's #3472, TDH-5303. Wings applied in 1964.
#s 5516-5525; MaBSTOA; TDH-5303; 1964-1965
#s 6701-6900; MaBSTOA; TDH-5303; 1965
#s 8001-8202; NYCTA; TDH-5303; 1966-1967 with a/c
#s 8301-8700; MaBSTOA; TDH-5303; 1966-1967 with a/c
#s 8829-8878; NYCTA; T6H-5305A; 1968 with a/c
# 7753; MaBSTOA; FLX 53102-6-1; 1974 with a/c **
# 631; MaBSTOA; FLX 53102-8-1; 1980

** = perhaps the entire series in this group (7500-7659 = NYCTA; 7700-7937 = MaBSTOA) were intended to have batwings since they did not have standee windows and several roof line attachments appear along the roof line where the wings would be attached as well as the mid coach clearance light is not position on the roof line but at the same heights as the top of the window right before the rear door and middle window on the street side. Something to think about!



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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629
BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Posts: 22167
Location: NEW JOISEY

PostPosted: Mon Aug 16, 2021 11:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Shocked Shocked Shocked Shocked Shocked

I REPEAT:

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Shocked Shocked Shocked Shocked Shocked

MAN, OH, MAN, WHAT NOSTALGIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy

Now THESE are what I call BUSES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Very Happy Very Happy Very Happy

THANKS for sharing these!!!!!! Very Happy Very Happy

"NYO"
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W.B. Fishbowl



Age: 57
Joined: 02 Oct 2014
Posts: 2368
Location: New York, New York, USA

PostPosted: Tue Aug 17, 2021 8:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This picture . . .

. . . is also notable because it shows the "Leigh-EPOK" display as it looked from fall 1965 to early 1976 (although Bulova's Accutron started advertising there in late 1964). The EPOK in that form (76 x 54 array = 4,104 bulbs, rows spaced 4.5" apart, columns 4.875" apart) had been on that corner since Nov. 1, 1940, and apart from being deactivated during World War II owing to dimout requirements, was in almost constant operation through early 1977 (the last advertiser on the EPOK: Carlton cigarettes) and remained in place to 1979 when, upon Douglas Leigh selling all his Times Square billboards to Van Wagner Outdoor Advertising, it was dismantled and replaced with a shaped JVC billboard. The EPOK had Venetian blinds installed between rows around 1960-61.

The time display shown in that pic dates back to fall 1965, and the way the lamp banks were laid out (especially the curvature allowing display of a '7') has long been a favorite of mine. The columns of the clock were 4" spaced, the rows 3.5" spaced. A smaller version of that kind of clock was in place for decades outside whichever watch store was on the SE corner of 34th and 7th Avenue near Penn Station (evidently, after the original was demolished and the Madison Square Garden IV complex and nearby office buildings went up). Most places, the '1' was a number and not resembling a stick 'I' as here. Only one such type display is still around today in the NYC metro: at the Columbia Heights complex in Brooklyn which, at installation in the late 1950's/early '60's, housed the E.R. Squibb factory (it's today part of Bristol-Myers Squibb), for some five decades the HQ of the Watchtower Bible & Tract Society, and today has a 'WELCOME' in bright red letters below it.

To make room for that clock, the bottom four rows of the EPOK were deactivated, so that only 76 x 50 (3,800 bulbs) was seen.

The onetime MONY building's (now 1740) time display was long ago ruined by a new set of lamp banks installed over the original. (This is pertinent insofar as pictures taken aimed towards that building as buses, whether batwing or non-batwing, pass by.) An artist's rendering of the "classic" time display, with temperature showing, below:


Last edited by W.B. Fishbowl on Fri Sep 24, 2021 10:25 pm; edited 1 time in total
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W.B. Fishbowl



Age: 57
Joined: 02 Oct 2014
Posts: 2368
Location: New York, New York, USA

PostPosted: Tue Aug 17, 2021 8:11 am    Post subject: Re: New York's Batwing Buses Reply with quote

MaBSTOA 15 wrote:
New York's fabled "bat-wing" buses a pictorial history...

The first prototype was MaBSTOA's #3472, TDH-5303. Wings applied in 1964.
#s 5516-5525; MaBSTOA; TDH-5303; 1964-1965
#s 6701-6900; MaBSTOA; TDH-5303; 1965
#s 8001-8202; NYCTA; TDH-5303; 1966-1967 with a/c
#s 8301-8700; MaBSTOA; TDH-5303; 1966-1967 with a/c
#s 8829-8878; NYCTA; T6H-5305A; 1968 with a/c
# 7753; MaBSTOA; FLX 53102-6-1; 1974 with a/c **
# 631; MaBSTOA; FLX 53102-8-1; 1980

** = perhaps the entire series in this group (7500-7659 = NYCTA; 7700-7937 = MaBSTOA) were intended to have batwings since they did not have standee windows and several roof line attachments appear along the roof line where the wings would be attached as well as the mid coach clearance light is not position on the roof line but at the same heights as the top of the window right before the rear door and middle window on the street side. Something to think about!

I have to wonder. Since the 1965 order to MaBSTOA, in terms of original depot assignments, had all batwinged buses (6701-6900) assigned to all Manhattan depots except 12th Street (which had various hand-me-downs from other depots as the buses were nearing the end of their active service lives), it begs the question of whether the parallel order of 190 TA buses to Flxible (5601-5790) would have had batwings installed had any of them been assigned to 126th Street ('MAN') depot for service on M-15 and other TA Manhattan bus routes. Pictures exist of the Transign type "batwings" on Flxies in other cities including Chicago - and exactly as orientated on those which for decades were a fixture of New York City streets.

(Initially, the non-batwings, 6401-6700, were all dispatched to the three Bronx depots - Coliseum, Kingsbridge and West Farms; within a few years a few of those were swapped for batwings so that Manhattan got some of the non-batwings and the Bronx a few batwings up to the 1966-67 order.)

Of course I don't have to mention that both the 6401-6900 order to GM for MaBSTOA and 5601-5790 Flxible order for TA were the first where the buses arrived from the respective factories with the rear windows built as 4-piece.
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W.B. Fishbowl



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Location: New York, New York, USA

PostPosted: Tue Aug 17, 2021 8:35 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

And here's a color-corrected version of that 1966 picture of bus #6743 traipsing Times Square:


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Color-Corrected Bus 6743 at Times Square, 1966
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Q65A



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Location: Central NJ

PostPosted: Mon Aug 23, 2021 6:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice memories!
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MaBSTOA 15



Age: 70
Joined: 27 Feb 2013
Posts: 1055

PostPosted: Mon Dec 06, 2021 10:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jamaica Omnibus, (Kingston, Jamaica)... batwing version

Leyland-MCW "Olympic" model ER-44-2



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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629
BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Posts: 22167
Location: NEW JOISEY

PostPosted: Mon Dec 06, 2021 10:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

PERFECTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SHEER PERFECTION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Now these are what REAL buses looked like!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OUTSTANDING gallery of classic bus photos; THANK YOU (and our good friend, W.B.), for sharing!! for sharing here!!!!! Wink

"NYO"
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629
BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee



Joined: 18 Dec 2007
Posts: 22167
Location: NEW JOISEY

PostPosted: Mon Dec 06, 2021 10:25 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

MaBSTOA 15 wrote:
Jamaica Omnibus, (Kingston, Jamaica)... batwing version

Leyland-MCW "Olympic" model ER-44-2


LOVE this bus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Very Happy

Reminds me a bit of an "exotic" ACF-BRILL*! Shocked Wink

"NYO"

*In the early 1950's, there were some experimental single-deckers to be seen on the streets of London; several were almost ACF-BRILL clones.

This was also quite evident in the window designs; one of these was the AEC "Monocoach".

Another was the LEYLAND PSUC 1/1................

"NYO"
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