1904 (undated)
Description
This 1904-07 Wanamaker Vest Pocket Subway Guide is one of only four known surviving examples of the first subway map intended for public use. It was printed in 1904 on behalf of, or by, Wanamaker's department stores to promote their expanded New York City location, which featured an underground entrance to the Astor Place subway station. That busy subway platform is pictured here in an image entitled 'The Wanamaker Station in the Subway at Astor Place,' showing fashionably-dressed New Yorkers at the entrance to the Wanamaker's store (pointed out to the reader with the red, hand-stamped note, 'Direct Entrance from Subway to the Wanamaker Store Now Open.') A train, with its taillight shining, can be seen leaving on the uptown track. Below this vignette are a timetable and a map of the nascent subway (then extending from Brooklyn Bridge to 145th Street.) Special attention, naturally, is given on both the map and timetable to the Astor Place stop with its underground Wanamaker's storefront.