No idea who Narcissa Prentiss was, someone American Revolutionary no doubt, and quite possibly full of herself. Erected, if you can't read, in 1931. Courtesy Doug Kerr, this is on NY 53.


Next route up, this ancient relic is in John Krakoff's collection.


NY 168 crosses various century-old bridges in Herkimer County. I captured two of them in quick succession, WB.


Older shields, second photo courtesy Doug Kerr - it would be nice to bring the little "NY" back in every shield. Erie County has a few shields remaining on a few of its many county roads, but if they were ever consistently posted, the trend now is to eliminate that. This one is on Clark St. east of McKinley Pkwy. in Hamburg.


NYSDOT inexplicably went with blue milemarkers on the short NY 695, a connector from I-690 to NY 5 (690 + 5 = 695). They also put the direction on the markers twice - spelled out and above the numeral. This is blessed overkill. The 5 expressway to which this connects also has blue milemarkers, probably installed by the same contractor for the same project.


NY has two types of state routes: reference and touring. Touring routes are the signed ones, reference are the legislated ones. Some touring routes are signed over town-owned roads, because there's no better way or because they've always gone that way.. In the case of reference routes, some roads are state-owned, but since the state doesn't want to post a number, they're assigned something high in the 900's with a letter suffix. The second digit is the region (NYSDOT is divided into 11 regions for easier management, and 0 goes to Regions 10 and 11), and the third is the type of road (6 for service road, 7-9 for parkways, otherwise regular reference route). Thus 961F is a regular Region 6 reference route, and 990V is in Region 9. For parkways, the name is shielded and the number is kept secret (as well as Rochester's Inner Loop). Well, in this case, reference routes just got made public, courtesy Doug Kerr. It's interesting to note that, as far as I know, NY has never used a 2-digit shield for a 3-digit route (or vice versa), not even by accident.


Madison County gets lazy, as does the 6 on its sign. Actually, it seems to be about a 5:30. Both of these signs are at CR 1; the second is on Kirkville Rd. EB in Kirkville.

NB in Essex County.

Walnut St. SB over the Chemung River in Elmira.


Culvert St. EB over Oswego Canal Lock 1 in Phoenix.


On North Rd. near E. Pharsalia, courtesy John Krakoff. The speed limit advisory sign looks NYSDOT (at least in that it's too large), but the curve is clearly Chenango County.


Because this page needs more old white signs, more button copy, and more embossing. These are courtesy John Krakoff and I cannot vouch for them still being in the field. The first is on Mill St. and the second is exiting Letchworth State Park at NY 436 near NY 19.


Different than the old white signs, but I think this was the next paint color scheme to come along, on NY 220 courtesy John Krakoff.


Courtesy Michael Summa, entering the state in 1969.

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