page_title: New York City Subway tiles
section_title: Squire Vickers (1906–1942)
hierarchical_section_title: New York City Subway tiles / Original IRT and BMT tiles / Squire Vickers (1906–1942)
caption_attribution_description: English: 28th Street column mosaics
context_page_description: Many New York City Subway stations are decorated with colorful ceramic plaques and tile mosaics. Of these, many take the form of signs, identifying the station's location. Much of this ceramic work was in place when the subway system originally opened on October 27, 1904. Newer work continues to be installed each year, much of it cheerful and fanciful.
context_section_description: In 1906, Squire J. Vickers, then a young architect, was hired. Vickers showed much respect for Heins and LaFarge, but his work consists much more of mosaics; he did not use bas-relief, citing the need for easy cleaning. Vickers also preserved the fonts that Heins and LaFarge used in their name tablets; however, in Vickers's new name tablets, the tilework on the borders of the tablets was more simplified.
  In his pictorial work, Vickers emphasizes actual buildings as landmarks, such as his colorful depiction of Brooklyn Borough Hall (1919) at the station of that name, rather than Heins and LaFarge's beavers and sailing ships. He describes his technique:
  "...the mosaic was of the cut variety, that is, the body is burned in strips, glazed, and then broken into irregular shapes. The designs are set by hand and shipped in sections with paper pasted on the front. These sections are set against the wall flush with the tile. In certain stations the color bands and name tablets are a combination of mosaic and hand-made tile"
  — (Stookey, 1994).
  Through the 1930s, Vickers ordered some enamel signs for the IRT and BMT from both Nelke Signs and the Baltimore Enamel Company. These signs were located on girder and cast-iron columns, and made them easier to identify stations. Shortened station names on the porcelain-enamel signs had a condensed sans serif capital-letter font.
  Vickers continued to work on subway projects for 36 years, until 1942.
caption: Enamel station-identification signs
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