Over on Twitter, Peter Lloyd – the doyen of new York Subway experts – has been showcasing the many maps of Arthur Weindorf (1885–1979), a perhaps unsung contributor to the rich transit mapping history of that city. Weindorf was something of an artistic Renaissance Man – he was a cartoonist, fine art painter, and architectural engineer for the New York Public Service Commission. As well as his many drawings and maps of the subway, he created three-dimensional models of the system that were displayed at the 1939–1940 World’s Fair.

Of all the maps that Peter has posted, this hand-drawn preliminary version of an ultimately unpublished IND Division map really caught may eye. It’s simplified, diagrammatic and surprisingly elegant in its execution, with colour-coded lines to bundle like routes together and a clear visual distinction between express (solid lines) and local/shuttle (pecked lines) services.

One oddity of the system as shown is the short-lived Court Street station in Brooklyn, now better known as the home of the New York Transit Museum. Opened in 1936 with plans to be the northern terminus of the HH Fulton Street Local and with possible future extension into Manhattan, it closed just ten years later with service only ever being provided by a one-stop shuttle to the nearby Hoyt-Schermerhorn station.

Despite being drawn two years after the unification of the three divisions of the subway, the map still only shows IND lines, with the few free transfers to the BMT and IRT indicated by large callouts. From 1943, the New York Board of Transportation started using Hagstrom maps that showed the entire network, which might explain why this map was never actually published – the last remnant of the “old way” of depicting the subway.

Still, it’s rather glorious to look at!

Source: Peter Lloyd/Twitter