This copy is copyright protected.
Copyright © 2025 Geographicus Rare Antique Maps
1956 Geographia Map of Fifth Avenue Coach Lines Bus Routes, Manhattan, NYC
5thAveCoachLines-geographia-1956$200.00
Title
Routes of Fifth Avenue Coach Lines, Inc. / Travel Around New York by Motor Coach Route Map Fifth Avenue Coach Lines, Inc.
1956 (undated) 14.5 x 29 in (36.83 x 73.66 cm) 1 : 18000
1956 (undated) 14.5 x 29 in (36.83 x 73.66 cm) 1 : 18000
Description
This is a c. 1956 Geographia Map Company map of Fifth Avenue Coach Lines bus routes in Manhattan and Queens, New York City. The map captures part of New York City's bus network just before the city government took over operating the city's buses.
A Closer Look
Bold red and yellow lines highlight the routes operated by Fifth Avenue Coach Lines. Yellow marks the FACO Division, and red marks the NYCO Division (see below for further explanation). Circles label routes throughout Manhattan and their extensions into Queens and the Bronx. The boxes mark each route's termini. Sites throughout the city are labeled, including Penn Station, Grand Central Terminal, Rockefeller Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Natural History, and The Cloisters.Verso Content
A map of Midtown Manhattan dominates the verso, providing users with a much more detailed understanding of that part of the city. A smaller map of downtown and the Financial District occupies the lower left corner. Printed photographs of sites across Manhattan occupy the upper-right and upper-left corners.Fifth Avenue Coach Lines
Fifth Avenue Coach Lines (1896 - 1962) was founded in 1896 as the Fifth Avenue Coach Company after the Fifth Avenue Transportation Company went bankrupt. The company initially operated horse-and-omnibus transit along Fifth Avenue from Bleeker Street to 89th Street. Residents along Fifth Avenue opposed the installation of streetcar rails, making Fifth Avenue the only avenue in New York to never have streetcar service. It introduced electric buses in 1898 and was acquired by the New York Transportation Company in 1899. In 1912, the company became an independent entity. Then, in 1925, it came under the control of The Omnibus Corporation. In the 1930s, the Fifth Avenue Coach Company began operating new coach lines as the streetcar routes were converted to buses. The Omnibus Corporation sold the Fifth Avenue Coach Company to the New York City Omnibus Corporation in 1954. In 1956 the company's name changed to Fifth Avenue Coach Lines in 1956. (This sale and name change explains FACO Division and NYCO Division on the map.) Fifth Avenue Coach Lines operated until 1962, when it went bankrupt and was taken over by the Manhattan and Bronx Surface Transit Operating Authority.Dating This Piece
To date this piece, we used the history of Fifth Avenue Coach Lines, which survived under that name from 1956 until 1962.Publication History and Census
This map was created and published by the Geographia Map Company, Inc. for Fifth Avenue Coach Lines c. 1956. The map is scarce on the private market and in institutional collections.Cartographer
Geographia, Ltd. (1911 - 1985) was a London-based cartographic publishing firm. The company was founded by Alexander Gross (1879 - 1958), a Hungarian immigrant to the United Kingdom. Geographia Ltd. is best known for its folding pocket maps and globes. Many of his maps were drawn by a mysterious 'Mr. Fountain', of whom we have been able to discover little. Gross ran into financial problems around 1940, likely associated with World War II, and relocated to offices in New York at 11 John Street. There, he issued a large corpus of U.S.-focused maps and city plans. By the 1940s, the branch in the United States had been renamed the Geographia Map Company and experienced rapid growth. By the 1950s, Geographia had published maps of dozens of cities across the United States. In 1987, the British branch was bought out by Harper Collins and continues to produce maps under the Collins Bartholomew imprint. Rand McNally bought the New York-based Geographia Map Company in the late 1980s. However, its original owners repurchased the Geographia Map Company a few years later and still operate the company in Hackensack, New Jersey. Gross's daughter, Phyllis Isobella Gross / Pearsall (1906 - 1996), founded the Geographers' A-Z Map Company in London, the largest independent map publisher in the United Kingdom. In the UK, their offices were originally at 33 Strand, where they published as 'Geographia Designing and Publishing Company Ltd.'. Later, by 1933, they had relocated to 55 Fleet Street, where they remained until at least 1937. By 1942, they relocated to 167 Fleet Street, followed by 114 Fleet Street by 1964. It is of note that many of the Geographia Ltd. maps feature a peculiar dating system wherein the letters in the world CUMBERLAND correspond to the numbers 1234567890, such that a date is rendered by substitution, so A.MU would break out like this A = 8, M = 3, U = 2, so 8.32 or, August 1932. Or, MM.YY e.g. E.MC = 5.31 = May 1931. More by this mapmaker...
Condition
Good. Verso repairs to fold separations. Closed margin tears professionally repaired on verso. Slight loss at a few fold intersections. Creases. Map of Midtown Manhattan and Map of the Financial District on verso.
References
OCLC 878956976, 74928094.