The sign on the 47-50th Street platform has always fascinated me. It is so specific and unique, and at the same time, so completely unintelligible.
It clearly means something to New York City transit insiders, but I wonder if there’s anyone who has the knowledge necessary to understand that sign while simultaneously not knowing that “this tower is now on automatic.”
Clearly this is not the sort of sign you go buy off the rack. It’s a custom job. Somebody, probably multiple people, had to sit down and come up with the wording. And then someone else had to approve it.
-So, the tower at 47-50 is now on automatic, but nobody seems to know that. I keep sending out emails, and I think people just delete them. We had at least twelve track-adjusting specialists just last week thinking the tower was still on manual. It’s now on automatic.
-Okay… how about a sign?
-Good idea. I’ll get one made. “This tower is now on automatic.”
-I like it, I like it… but it doesn’t quite convey the nuance of the situation. You know?
-Yeah, I’m just not sure how we can accurately communicate all the ramifications of this tower now being on automatic.
(thoughtful silence)
-I’ve got it! “What you punch is what you get.”
-That is so, so perfect.
-Just make sure that part is in quotation marks.
-Please, do you think I started here yesterday?
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Doesn’t it mean that if you punch your stop into the menu pad of some sort of transporter machine governed by this tower — but you accidentally punch ‘New Jersey’ when you meant to punch ‘New Haven’ — it’s tough titty and you will be transported to New Jersey and there is no human being or other life form in said tower to whom you might complain and get a refund or your destination changed. Yer goin’ to Jersey — it’s automatic.
Hell, I don’t know. I’m from Texas, and we all just drive ever’whar our own selfs.