Just 46 Workers in Queens Make Nearly Every Street Sign in New York City
There Are over 1M New York City Street Signs. Here's How They Are Made.
The Maspeth Central Shop in Queens, part of the New York City Department of Transportation, still cuts, prints and assembles more than 70,000 municipal signs a year — from street-cleaning notices to highway greenboards — even in a digital age. Its 46 employees, including seven hand letterers and a blacksmith, maintain over a million signs across the five boroughs, replacing damaged stop signs, updating renamed streets, and even rushing out 30 "Champions Way" signs for the Knicks' title parade.
"This is the start of it all," said Mike Fratianni, 49, the deputy chief of Maspeth operations. "This is the beginning of every sign in the city."
- bookofjoe
https://wallhop.io/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/15/nyregi...
- timr
> Even Mayor Zohran Mamdani showed up at the shop to help with the Knicks signs.
Well thank goodness that detail was included. I don't think the sign shop that manages 1 million signs could have done the job without him.
But in all seriousness...is it too much to ask the NY Times to have a human interest article about the freaking sign shop without it incorporating partisan politics?
I realize that politicians are going to take photo ops, but you don't have to cover it.