On Feb. 14, 1973, Ernst Halberstadt looked down Boylston Street from the area of Arlington Street and snapped this photo of a road sign that today strikes us as odd, for several reasons.
To start, it’s blue, not green, the font and road outlines are weird, and what’s up with those C-roads?
Turns out that back in the 1970s, Boston for some reason decided to put up some road signs based on designs developed in the 1960s by graphic artists Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinneir – for United Kingdom “motorways” (their equivalent of interstates), which use blue instead of green. The Brits did use green for signs on local roads – compare the Boylston sign to this local sign in England (via) – and note the similar use of a round “Do Not Enter” symbol, which was not at all common here in the 1970s. Here are some more British examples…