Taken from a rather breathless prospectus promoting the Avenue of the Americas (also known as plain old Sixth Avenue, New York) as the economic and cultural epicentre of pretty much the entire universe.

Produced by the Avenue of the Americas Association, and entitled simply “From humble beginnings to architectural and commercial greatness – the saga of the Avenue of the Americas: New York’s prestige address and one of the great thoroughfares of the world”, the brochure waxes lyrical about the history, present and future of this grand old street. Its pages do offer an interesting look at both the construction and demolition of the original elevated rail line, but it’s this subway map on the inside back cover that caught my eye.

Unfortunately printed in dark brown and black on yellow card stock (soooo 1970s!), it can be a little hard to distinguish between roads and subway lines, especially because the map makes the Avenue of the Americas (naturally!) three times as wide as all the other streets. But this is a map designed to reinforce how awesome the street is – gaze upon our centrally located subway stops and how they conveniently connect you with the rest of New York! – rather than acting as a truly useful map. They even sneakily rename the IND Sixth Avenue line as the “Ave. of Americas Line”!

Points of interest: the northern terminal of the Sixth Avenue line is at 57th Street: the IND 63rd Street line hasn’t been built yet and is shown as a “Future extension to Queens”. There’s also a dashed line for a “Proposed Crosstown Shuttle” on 48th Street, part of the 1968 “Program for Action” that never came to fruition.

Source: The Internet Archive