NYC subway map

It started with this article on NY Times, titled “Win, Lose, Draw: The Great Subway Map Wars”. The writer talked about John Tauranac’s latest design for the NYC subway map. Mr. Tauranac, the article reported, used to work for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and chaired the committee that gave birth to the 1979 subway map (which, as I understand it, is the basis for the map we see now).

subwayart.png

(above left: current NYC subway map; above right: “Indoor-Outdoor with Northampton Woods” by Nobu Siraisi, 2000, Oil on canvas)
I was curious and wanted to find out a bit more about Mr. Tauranac and the subway map. So I Googled around and found this 2004 Gothamist post and in its comments found this:

to Kevin Walsh:

I would greatly appreciate a correction to your 2004 posting of comments on Kick design subway map. It should read something like the credit in the actual legend.

Stick with the Hertz (current) map, it’s esthetically better.

deleting
Stick with the Tauranac (current) map, it’s esthetically better.

Just because he has been grabbing credit for my work for 27 years, it will never make him the ‘designer’, ‘chief designer’ or any other aggrandizing credit that he always generously bestows upon himself.

thanks,
mike hertz, designer of current map AND the iconic 1979 map from which the current map was derived.

I was curious about thie Michael Hertz, and what he said… and a little bit more Googling got me this page of comments for Columbia Magazine, and again Mr. Hertz left a message regarding Tauranac and the subway map. This time backed by Arline L. Bronzaft who was on the committee that Mr. Tauranac chaired. Further down the page is a response from Tauranac,

Of course Michael Hertz and his staff at Michael Hertz Associates, especially Nobu Siraisi, were critical to the completion of the job, as were Arline Bronzaft and all the members of the committee. Without their collective input and help the product would not have been half as good as it was.

And who is Nobu Siraisi? Apparently Mr. Siraisi was the art director for Michael Hertz and he’s also an artist - who assisted and worked with such greats as Isamu Noguchi, Louise Nevelson, and I.M. Pei. He even has his own website.

Posted on 19 January 2007 by shawn, in Design, Miscellany, NYC

One Comment

  1. mike hertz  / 12 February 2007

    When I have some more time I will respond at more length to your interesting query. Tauranac was not even invited to join ‘the committee’ until 1976. The committee was formed in 1975 at the NYC Transit Authority, NOT at MTA where Tauranac was employed as a writer. And furthermore he didn’t assume the chairmanship until about 2 years into the project [about '78]

    He has been taking credit for the design of the 1979 map for 27 years now and fed up, I recently decided to respond to any publication that trumpeted his claim to the design credit. Backed up by many letters from the original committee members that I could find as well as by reputable historical websites.

    Nobu is an extremely gifted designer who I have maintained communications with for these many years.

    Thanks for your interest.

    You might go to Wikipedia and type ‘John Tauranac’ and see what you get.

    go to the links you find there.

    mike

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