Cat-loving commuters in London were recently greeted by posters of adoptable cats on the walls of the Clapham Common Tube Station. Now visitors to the Grand Central’s Gallery Annex of the New York Transit Museum are finding themselves traveling down Memory Lane thanks to an exhibit of Etti-Cat posters. These popular posters of a tactful tuxedo cat taught meownners to the masses who rode the subway in the 1960s.
From commending the good conduct of commuters who decide to concede their seat on the subway to a senior passenger to reminding regular metro riders not to litter, Etti-Cat posters were plastered on approximately half of the Transit Authority’s 6,500 subway cars back in the 1960s.
Just who was the polite poster kitty of these public transit PSAs from the past? According to the website Hyperallergic, the honor of posing for artist Jo Mary McCormick was bestowed on a black-and-white cat named Pipsqueak. The ads, which made their debut in 1962, even granted Pippy celebrity status, with a 56-page picture book about the fastidious feline, Etti-Cat: The Courtesy Cat, published in 1965.
Even kitties who make us mindful to watch our p’s and q’s can make mistakes. Etti-Cat acts contrite in this vintage vision:
How to Visit the Exhibit
Transit Etiquette Or: How I Learned to Stop Spitting and Step Aside in 25 Languages will be stationed in the Grand Central Terminal’s Gallery Annex of the New York Transit Museum through October 20th. Can’t make it to the museum on time? You won’t be in the dog house, as the retro adverts will soon return to their permanent home inside an array of old subway cars on display at the New York Transit Museum in Brooklyn, a venue which has given a new life to the decommissioned Court Street subway station.
The Gallery Annex in Grand Central Terminal, whose presently houses the temporary exhibition, can be found off the Main Concourse in the Shuttle Passage, next to the Station Masters’ Office. Admission is free. The New York Transit Museum, where the posters are usually housed, is located at the corner of Boerum Place and Schermerhorn Street in downtown Brooklyn. Admission is $10 for adults, $5 for children between the ages of 2 – 17.
For more information:
- visit www.nytransitmuseum.org
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