Fallout Shelters of New York City

I have a rather weird side hobby; when I walk around New York City, I keep my eyes trained just above head level and I scan both sides of the street. I look for signs of a particular nature: fallout shelter signs. As you no doubt have noticed, the image in the header of this blog is of a fallout shelter sign. I even have a large mounted against the exposed brick wall in my apartment. Why the fascination? To understand my hobby, you should know that the signs were all created and mounted in the early 1960's, so they represent a very paranoid time in our history. They are anachronisms.

So far, I have collected pictures of 88 different signs. That number is sure to go up this summer when the weather is warm enough to walk more than a couple blocks for no good reason. Here is a gallery of the pictures I have taken. They are all done with my iPhone. I do take higher quality pictures with a digital camera (as you can see above), but I am saving those for more impressive applications.

                                                                                                                                                                               

My goal this year is to reach 200 and to actually visit the inside of a former fallout shelter. (Bonus assignment: parse the EXIF data from each of these photos and plot them all out on a map.)

6 nibbles:

Dorkys Ramos said...

I love this collage of yours! And I'm just as impressed by the fact that you haven't given up or lost interest on your side project. I think it's good to have something to focus on especially when it comes to photography- it gives you a reason to bust out the camera every now and then.

I must admit, now you have me trying to find those signs myself! Thanks for giving this New Yorker a reason to slow down, take my eyes off the ground and look at her surroundings.

floreta said...

wow that's actually a pretty cool hobby. i like it! and i love the word anachronism.

Steph said...

Stumbled over from 20sb.

The collage is really awesome.

Everytime I think fallout shelter, I think of Blast From the Past.

peacenik said...

I am doing the same thing in yonkers.

You should check out conelrad. com.

There is a wonderful (if you can call it that), history of this ubiquitous symbol of our lives.

Also, check out the civil defense museum page. There are actually some shelters in Dallas stocked with the 2 week supply of food and essentials...since 1961!

Good work.

mattdonato said...

This is awesome! I'm doing a film in NYC and would need some of these. Are there any of them that you are allowed to go in and see the actual shelter?

Alex said...

Of particular interest to you would be the "Unterwelten" of Berlin (http://berliner-unterwelten.de/tour-3.15.1.html -- you would have to travel to Europe, though). They have an intact fallout bunker through which they offer tours.

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