Three 1948 station guides, one for each predecessor agency. Station Guides, 1948, XX.2014.6.11 New York Transit Museum Collection. One of the most important aspects of this new direction was reimagining the subway map. The authority hired Unimark International, who devised a set of standards for station signage as well as the way information was imparted to customers. The pace and challenges of subway unification had an instant and lingering impact on wayfinding information left over from the previous three-company era.Īlthough maps had depicted the unified system since 1940, the first cohesive effort to standardize the wayfinding and informational signage NYCTA inherited from numerous predecessor agencies began in 1966. Though they were officially one entity on paper, the physical integrations between the former IRT - today’s numbered lines - and the BMT and IND - today’s lettered lines - progressed slowly through the mid-1960s. In 1940, all three companies were unified under City control. New York’s subway system was originally three separate companies: the Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Company (BMT), and the City-owned Independent Subway System (IND).

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