13 Things I Found on the Internet Today (Vol. 779)

1. Where & how NYC’s street signs are made Sturdy sheets of aluminum are stacked to nearly the ceiling inside this industrial shop where almost every New York City street sign is born. Even in a digital age, the Maspeth Central Shop in Queens is still cutting, printing and assembling more than 70,000 municipal signs a year, from the street-cleaning signs found in every neighborhood to the big green signs directing traffic on major highways. The sign shop, which is part of the New York City Department of Transportation, has a staff of 46 workers, including seven letterers who lay out signs by hand and a blacksmith who makes custom brackets to securely attach signs to traffic poles. These workers are responsible for maintaining more than one million street signs across the five boroughs. When a stop sign is damaged, they are the ones who make the replacement. When a street is renamed or a parking rule is changed, they update the signs to make it official. Read more, found on the NY…