News from the Michaelpelago

Submission – Historical Map: 1979 New York Subway Map

Submitted by peopleneedaplacetogo, who says:

This, from 1979, is the first published version of the now-familiar Michael Hertz Associated-designed New York Subway map, which replaced the (in)famous diagrammatic Vignelli map of the early 1970s.  While most of the design decisions are still reflected in the subway map today, it’s interesting to see what’s changed over the intervening 35 years.  The 1979 map is somewhat less geographically distorted, the distinction between express and local services is drawn slightly differently (with coloured tickmarks for local and coloured circles for express, even at stations where only “express” trains stop), and since most subway-bus transfers were not free back then, the few bus routes that did offer free transfer are shown prominently (these were mostly bus routes that had replaced previously-existing subway services, in some cases 60+ years before this map was published).

Transit Maps says:

It’s funny how we call this the “same” map as today’s version, because there’s a lot of differences, both big and small. The Beck-style tick marks for local stations as mentioned above, no Staten Island inset, the biggest legend box I’ve ever seen, the colours used for water and parkland… the list goes on!

Historical Map: Polish Airlines LOT Route Map, 1939

An absolutely phenomenal airline route diagram from 1939, which is both map and schedule in one. 

The thicker route lines represent the routes that belong to Polish Airlines LOT – one of the oldest continually operating airlines in Europe; they still use the beautiful flying crane logo today – with thinner route lines representing partner or connecting airlines. Red lines show daily service, black lines show weekday or irregular service. The departure and arrival times for each flight are indicated within the circles at each city – for the most part, the bigger the circle, the more flights serve it, although Warsaw’s importance is overstated somewhat as LOT’s main hub. Red times show the different schedules for Sundays. The flight/route number for each flight is superimposed over each route line: you can see that some flights “hop” from city to city along the way.

Ominously, a legend at the bottom states: “The services on all lines passing through PRAHA (Prague) are suspended until a special notice is given.” Czechoslovakia had, by this time, been occupied by Nazi Germany, and WWII was about to break over Europe like a wave.

Our rating: Information-rich and weirdly beautiful in a very abstract way. I love this so much: five stars!