Starting in Manhattan, this is the right width but way too tall, on 36th St. EB. The sign atop the page is the corresponding shield on 3rd Ave. NB. Put these signs in a 3-digit shield, please.
I-495, according to some, begins here at the entrance to the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, while others hold that it's NY 495 until I-278. Historically, the latter has been true, but the former is probably true now. I'm not getting in the fight between NYSDOT and FHWA, because there are other anomalies here. For example, the stretch from I-278 to I-678 is technically NY 495, and everything east of I-295 started out as NY 495 before being upgraded. These signs are on 1st Ave. NB and 2nd Ave. SB respectively, and the one atop the page is on 34th St. WB.
Don't touch the hanging macaroni as you enter the tunnel and enjoy the drive east.
The tunnel's toll plaza is on the east side just before the Pulaski Bridge. Most lanes are thru only, but the rightmost few present the option to exit immediately to 21st St.
If you do exit immediately, you'll be at Borden Ave. under the Pulaski Bridge into Greenpoint, Brooklyn.
Click each video for the full experience of driving through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel EB and then WB.
The WB roadway exiting the tunnel quickly widens and splits apart in its trench. The Downtown branch was intended to connect across town (submerged, but with an elevated alternative once audaciously proposed) to the Lincoln Tunnel, hence the latter's numbering as NJ-NY 495 and previously I-495 in NJ. The gore between Crosstown and Uptown branches needs a little work; the top arrow should be more of a squiggle, since this implies you have to turn right and then curve left, conflicting with the bottom arrow that tells you to go straight and curve right.
You'll want to take the Downtown branch, by the way. That gives you button copy and this original sign on the original lightpost.
