The TV Series "Welcome Back Kotter" was set in Brooklyn, NY. As such, the opening and closing sequences of the show depict scenes from around the borough of Brooklyn.
There is a unique street sign in this video of the closing sequence of the show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mPaed8I3V1A
If you advance to 1:14, watch as the camera slowly pans to the right. You'll see a pedestrian crossing sign, the style of which I think was only found in NYC. Among its features:
- There are two people figures, rather than the one found on Ped Xing signs
- It's diamond-shaped; most signs with those symbols are the "schoolhouse pentagon" type
- It's colored orange, though not the shade used for construction zone signage. The color is a little washed out here, but I think it was a sort of red-orange. This of course was years before the advent of pedestrian lime-green (did that ever catch on?)
- The people figures are noticeably "thicker" than the ones on standard school crossing signs
Note that not all seasons of Welcome Back Kotter had this scene, and for those that did, the TV stations often cut off the credits earlier, at least when in syndication or reruns.
I would like to think, too, that the sign was unique to New York City at one time. In any case, that version is old, and the color was in between yellow and orange. Fairly dark in appearance, in which you mentioned. What's interesting to point out, though, is that the sign used another color scheme as well, in which the figures were white, while the background was blue. The exact color scheme that was used for the Bronxs' original large vinyl aluminum street signs in the 1960s.
The present day signs in New York City are not special in anyway whatsoever, and that includes those school crossing signs, in which they are actually lime-green.
I think the season with the longest ending sequence was the last and final season of the series. After both Gabe Kaplan and John Travolta left the show (although Kaplan was still credited, but his face was not shown like when he was on the show) the sequence also got longer at the start too.
Anyway, I am interested in knowing where the location of the sign that started the whole opening sequence that statted "Welcome to Brooklyn" was located?
BTW NYC always had their own stuff in many items, that is a shame now that they are all gone in a way as some of their signs and things were neat at the time. I know times have changed so things need to be universal, but at the same time missing them.
Quote from: roadman65 on June 01, 2013, 04:46:41 PM
BTW NYC always had their own stuff in many items, that is a shame now that they are all gone in a way as some of their signs and things were neat at the time. I know times have changed so things need to be universal, but at the same time missing them.
New York City's department of transportation has what is known as the Sign Sales program, in which several members of the D.O.T. manufacture replicas of several vintage street signs that were once in use throughout the city of New York.
http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/html/infrastructure/custom-signs.shtml#Historical
Some replicas that the folks manufacture are the
"color-coded" street signs that were in use in the boroughs in the 1960s and 1970s and classic 1950s version of New York City's
"ONE WAY" arrow sign. Most of the asking prices are reasonable, and the replicas themselves are manufactured with care, since I did order a replica once. Though there are some pros and cons to take into consideration (from a sign collector's and enthusiast's point of view).
Pro: D.O.T. still has the original designs for the vintage street signs that it offers to the general public.
Pro: Manufactured professionally and with care.
Con: Any vintage street sign replication is not traditionally double-sided for a simple reason. The Sign Sales program has to follow guidelines from N.Y.C.D.O.T., since these cannot be installed on an actual street anywhere in New York City.
Con: Lack of mounting holes, which the reason for this stems back to the previous con.
I have since sold my replication, since I found an authentic version after a long search. In any case, I would still recommend them to those that are less serious collectors and N.Y.C. lovers or natives.
I'm pretty sure that the "Welcome to Brooklyn" sign was located on the Belt Parkway going south/east, just after you enter from the Verrazzano Bridge. That may have been replaced by one of those snarky signs, like the one that says "Fuhgeddaboudit".
How can Brooklyn be the "Fourth largest city in America" if Brooklyn is a borough?
Quote from: lepidopteran on June 02, 2013, 11:06:15 PM
I'm pretty sure that the "Welcome to Brooklyn" sign was located on the Belt Parkway going south/east, just after you enter from the Verrazzano Bridge. That may have been replaced by one of those snarky signs, like the one that says "Fuhgeddaboudit".
How can Brooklyn be the "Fourth largest city in America" if Brooklyn is a borough?
Brooklyn up to 1898 Was A Independent City. Based upon the population in the late 70's Brooklyn would have been the 4th largest city in America.
(New York in 1898 only was the island of Manhattan and the southern part of the Bronx, Brooklyn covered all of Kings County)
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Ffarm4.staticflickr.com%2F3816%2F10912081753_fd71870edd.jpg&hash=b9f8789ce27f1797d108a46e319961eceb6ed9ad)
Near 155th St. Still there! I took it today.
Definitely an old NYCDOT standard. I found one of those in an odd corner of The Bronx once:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fimg690.imageshack.us%2Fimg690%2F2434%2Fpc0506.jpg&hash=80161258633ea9be55b36fa052df35ac156a7f51)