Michael Hertz, whose firm designed New York City's famous subway map, dies at the age of 87

UK Daily Mail ^ | February 26, 2020 | Rachel Sharp

[C19fan]

Michael Hertz, the man who helped design New York City's famous subway map, has died at the age of 87.

His death was confirmed by his son Eugene, who announced his father died on February 18 at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, New York.

His cause of death has not been revealed.

Hertz is best known as the man behind the map of the New York City subway system, which is still used by commuters and tourists to navigate their way round the city today.

[C19fan]

Perhaps the 2nd most famous subway map after the London Tube. When I was a kid I would have my grandpa, who worked for the MTA, bring my NYC subway maps. I do remember the previous map. In that map a lot of the routes were artificially straightened out.

[xp38]

The world has changed. The biggest subway system in the world now is in Beijing. Most of it built in the last 20 years.

[Yo-Yo]

I had to see the map for myself:

[Army Air Corps]

Ping.

[goldstategop]

Most famous metro after the London Tube is the Moscow Metro which opened in 1935.

A template for all the rest.

[sodpoodle]

Recently posted a comment about meeting Carlton Sickles, in a doctor office. Didn’t know who he was, but a colleague mentioned I used the Metro and he handed me his 35yr service pin.

Jan 18, 2004 · Carlton R. Sickles, 82, a former Maryland congressman, legislator and champion of the Metrorail transit system who was known to many as “the father of Metro,” died in his sleep yesterday at his home in North Bethesda. He had congestive heart failure.

[Steven Scharf]

I expected this to be about the The map created by Italian designer Massimo Vignelli and introduced in 1972 that introduced me to the system in 1977.

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2020/02/26/01/25199854-8044657-image-a-10_1582679119596.jpg

A may have not been a good tool for the uninitiated, but it was a work of art.

In the 1990s I was working for another map company and we got from the MTA a EPS version of the current map so that we could modify it for a large event we were printing maps for. The document was large for the computing power at the time and would take several minutes to load. But it was fun to have access to the bones of such a document.

[fieldmarshaldj]

RIP.