
The Complex Series of Symbols Early Motorists Used for Wayfinding - pepys
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2015/04/10/history_of_automobile_touring_the_symbols_early_motorists_used_for_wayfinding.html
======
Symbiote
They mostly seem self-explanatory to me, but I've always been interested in
maps. My dad had 30 or so of the government-produced maps of Britain, for
various regions he liked to go hillwalking. I was more interested in finding
interesting features ("Tumulus", a disused quarry, a battlefield) than the
walking.

Map symbols: [http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/education-
research/resources...](http://www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/education-
research/resources/map-symbol-sheets.html) (first PDF link, or the third if
you'd like to see some Welsh)

Example map:
[http://streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=486745&y=233110&z=115](http://streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=486745&y=233110&z=115)
with roads, railway, woodland, Roman ruins (to the east), landfill/spoil,
hills, ...

------
fennecfoxen
If found, receipt return to 23 Beaver Street, New York? I used to work for a
tech company in the same building as the one which now occupies this space
(though I used a Broad Street entrance); I believe 23 Beaver is now the
entrance to the New York State Lottery offices. (The justice department has
some juvenile-justice/family-court-something offices next door at 25 Beaver).
It's just around the corner from Bowling Green and the Charging Bull, and it's
on the south end of the same block as the New York Stock Exchange.

They probably had a different building there back in the day, but regardless,
it seems likely that Edward W Brown was probably some sort of fancy Wall
Street financier or similar, especially given that he was touring Long Island
in an early motorcar...

~~~
kahirsch
He was vice president of the Sterling Salt company at the time[1] and later
president[2]. He was also a "prominent yachtsman" and the son of Vernon H.
Brown, the head of Cunard Lines' New York office.

[1]
[https://books.google.com/books?id=XFw3AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA4208](https://books.google.com/books?id=XFw3AQAAIAAJ&pg=PA4208)

[2]
[http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F05E2DA173EE...](http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9F05E2DA173EE633A25750C1A9629C946394D6CF)

------
jjp
Would be interesting to see somebody try and follow some of the routes (either
for real or on Streetview)

------
IgorPartola
It is hard for me to imagine exactly what this looked like from behind the
wheel. Symbols like "bear left" are still in use today on our no doubt much
better roads. Then there is the symbol for "follow telephone wires". It
implies a lack of sign posts, and possibly roads altogether. This gives me a
glimpse of what driving/navigating was like, but not a complete picture.
Anyone have more insight?

~~~
fennecfoxen
I started following the route on Google Maps. It looks like the route between
the two ferries is still the same today (route 114) and while I didn't spot
the hotel or the rustic gate, "follow telephone wires" seems like a reasonable
thing to do here:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@41.083662,-72.351295,3a,75y,139...](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.083662,-72.351295,3a,75y,139.69h,89.73t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sQWCE_wo3l5g4hFbIx5iXPg!2e0)
even when you're cruising along and come to a possibly-tricky junction when
you haven't hit that first right turn yet:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@41.076737,-72.348464,3a,75y,159...](https://www.google.com/maps/@41.076737,-72.348464,3a,75y,159.38h,70.98t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s7x86OxcesiR0R8RzBRqsGw!2e0)

------
fit2rule
Would be interesting to see a re-use/re-purposing of some of these symbols ..
seems like they all make a lot of sense - I wonder if I've seen them in some
GPS applications before, seems like TomTom use the turn-direction symbols.
Well, off to see if there's a font out there with these symbols in them ..

------
teddyh
What are the chances that these appear in a future Unicode?

------
pinaceae
how long until the slate author discovers the secret language of pacenotes in
rally car driving and someone posts them here?

