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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee
Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 22970 Location: NEW JOISEY
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Posted: Mon May 20, 2019 10:57 am Post subject: 60 years.......... |
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Fellows:
On October 2, 1959, FACCo's "Bus Of The Future" (aka the "New Look") was exhibited in Manhattan; the dawn of the long and colorful Fishbowl era was about to take place.
Interestingly, according to "WELCOME ABOARD THE GM NEW LOOK BUS" (McKane/Squier) this bus was also known as the "Wayward Bus".
One NYCTA employee sneered: "'Bus Of The Future' my eye! It's the same bus we brought here from Pontiac three or four months ago, and then returned to GM after our guys looked it over. Then it was laid up somewhere in New Jersey before Fifth Avenue got a hold of it, and brought it over here."
On October 19th, 1959, the NYCTA drove ten of their 190 bus-order of TDH-5301's to the steps of City Hall, for appraisal and exhibition.
These original buses all began their service lives in Brooklyn (recall, too, by 1960, the last of the B&QT trolley buses would be replaced by diesel buses)
Amazingly, unlike our classic and beloved Old Look, the New Look STILL has a contemporary look today that truly defines "timeless".
Even today, when looking at a picture of a Fishbowl, it is still a bit hard to believe that such a modern-looking bus first hit the streets 60 years ago........
"NYO"
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee
Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 22970 Location: NEW JOISEY
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee
Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 22970 Location: NEW JOISEY
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Posted: Mon May 20, 2019 11:26 am Post subject: |
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"As Modern as Tomorrow"
Here's a 1957 artist's conception of a TDH-5301; this would, then, make the New Look design 62 years old today.
Still and all, the New Look still has a futuristic appearance today, one that also rekindles nostalgic memories of the '64 World's Fair and "The Jetsons", when the 21st century was still light-years away into the future.....
http://bus.nycsubway.org/perl/show?290
(courtesy: bus.nycsubway.org)
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee
Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 22970 Location: NEW JOISEY
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Posted: Mon May 20, 2019 1:30 pm Post subject: |
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See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GM_New_Look_bus
Nearly 45,000 of these once-commonplace buses were built over the decdes; it would be interesting to at least get an estimate as to just how many survive today, even that none remain in regular service (AFAIK)
"NYO"
* GM knew they had a winner here; like the paired-window Old Looks before them, the New Looks recalled the legendary VW "Beetle"; aside from small exterior details here and there over the years, they remained (appearance-wise) virtually unchanged from 1959 through the 70's.
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee
Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 22970 Location: NEW JOISEY
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traildriver
Joined: 26 Mar 2011 Posts: 2462 Location: South Florida
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Posted: Mon May 20, 2019 3:32 pm Post subject: |
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 wrote: | "As Modern as Tomorrow"
Here's a 1957 artist's conception of a TDH-5301; this would, then, make the New Look design 62 years old today.
Still and all, the New Look still has a futuristic appearance today, one that also rekindles nostalgic memories of the '64 World's Fair and "The Jetsons", when the 21st century was still light-years away into the future.....
http://bus.nycsubway.org/perl/show?290
(courtesy: bus.nycsubway.org) |
Nice find...although when you consider its cousin, the PD-4104 parlor coach hit the road in 1953, I wonder why it took GM Coach an addtitional six years to introduce it.
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee
Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 22970 Location: NEW JOISEY
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Posted: Mon May 20, 2019 4:19 pm Post subject: |
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traildriver:
I have often wondered about the same thing myself.
As you know, the PD-4104 was the first GM bus to feature the same forward-slanting side windows (I DO recall, about 1972, seeing a real FLUKE near the old PS terminal in Newark; it was an ex-PS Old Look suburban that had been rebuilt with forward-slanting windows!!)
NEVER saw this rare bird again, nor anything even remotely close (I had been railfanning the City Subway PCC's that day, and was now out of film; I only had enough for bus fare home via TRACKLESS TRANSIT/MOUNTAIN COACHES #144!)
If "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery", then PREVOST, back in the 60's, certainly flattered GM; in 1965, the company built a group of 45-passenger, forty foot transit buses for a Vancouver operator.
Clearly, these buses were inspired by the New Look, though the front ends was pure PREVOST.
PREVOST's "PANORAMIQUE" and "CHAMPION" models also sported forward-slanting windows, back in the 60's; FLXIBLE began using forward-slanting windows in 1940, quite a few years before the GM 4104's began entering service.....
"NYO"
Last edited by NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 on Tue May 21, 2019 12:05 am; edited 1 time in total |
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee
Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 22970 Location: NEW JOISEY
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee
Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 22970 Location: NEW JOISEY
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee
Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 22970 Location: NEW JOISEY
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Posted: Tue May 21, 2019 12:03 am Post subject: |
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.......if New Yorkers thought that the modernistic, futuristic New Looks were startling, space-age vehicles when the debuted in 1959, just imagine their eyes (literally!) bugging out of their sockets, had "BUS-O-RAMA" ads been in use at that time......(!!)
"NYO"
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traildriver
Joined: 26 Mar 2011 Posts: 2462 Location: South Florida
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Posted: Tue May 21, 2019 8:16 am Post subject: |
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I recall a local television station interviewing one of the first TA driver's of the "fishbowl", and his appropriate comment to the reporter was that driving it made him feel like he was "on TV"....
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee
Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 22970 Location: NEW JOISEY
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Posted: Tue May 21, 2019 9:16 am Post subject: |
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traildriver wrote: | I recall a local television station interviewing one of the first TA driver's of the "fishbowl", and his appropriate comment to the reporter was that driving it made him feel like he was "on TV".... |
traildriver;
I think that driver was pretty much on the mark with that comment!
My Uncle Karl, who whose B-24 was shot down during WW2 (thank God he survived, and was later decorated!) always said "the front of those buses always reminded me of the nose on my 24!"
In Dayton, Ohio, the lower portions of the earliest New Look's windshields were actually covered over with opaque fiberglass, as a nod toward "modesty", befitting a Midwestern city!
Man, have times changed.........
"NYO"
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W.B. Fishbowl
Age: 57 Joined: 02 Oct 2014 Posts: 2478 Location: New York, New York, USA
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Posted: Tue May 21, 2019 9:41 am Post subject: Re: 60 years.......... |
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 wrote: | Fellows:
On October 2, 1959, FACCo's "Bus Of The Future" (aka the "New Look") was exhibited in Manhattan; the dawn of the long and colorful Fishbowl era was about to take place.
Interestingly, according to "WELCOME ABOARD THE GM NEW LOOK BUS" (McKane/Squier) this bus was also known as the "Wayward Bus".
One NYCTA employee sneered: "'Bus Of The Future' my eye! It's the same bus we brought here from Pontiac three or four months ago, and then returned to GM after our guys looked it over. Then it was laid up somewhere in New Jersey before Fifth Avenue got a hold of it, and brought it over here."
On October 19th, 1959, the NYCTA drove ten of their 190 bus-order of TDH-5301's to the steps of City Hall, for appraisal and exhibition.
These original buses all began their service lives in Brooklyn (recall, too, by 1960, the last of the B&QT trolley buses would be replaced by diesel buses)
Amazingly, unlike our classic and beloved Old Look, the New Look STILL has a contemporary look today that truly defines "timeless".
Even today, when looking at a picture of a Fishbowl, it is still a bit hard to believe that such a modern-looking bus first hit the streets 60 years ago........ |
The first TA New Looks to see any Manhattan service would have been from the 1960 order (within 501-805). The arrival of those first "Fishbowls" marked a turning point in several ways: the first buses ordered after a law against buses wider than 96" was rescinded; the first ordered after a law against advertising on the outsides of buses was rescinded; and the first with mylar rollsigns made by a new company, Transign of Pontiac, MI.
As for Fifth Avenue Coach Lines, their New Looks would be ordered in two stages, January-February 1960 (air-conditioned #1-10 and #3101-3110) and October-November 1960 (FACL #3111-3160 and Surface Transit #3161-3210, all of which had their debut on Nov. 1, 1960). They would have been "New Look's" service debut in Manhattan (I.I.N.M.), preceding the 1960 TA order.
All 10 A/C units were originally marked as Fifth Avenue Coach Lines, Inc., as evidenced in pics below (#8 on Route #10 around Central Park West and 110th Street/Cathedral Parkway and #10 on Route #1 along Madison Avenue on the Upper East Side). Around the time of the later 1960 delivery, 6-10 were reassigned to (and re-flagged on the bus sides as) Surface Transit, Inc. and placed in service on select Bronx lines.
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FACL A/C #8, 1960 (for educational purposes only) |
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FACL A/C #10, 1960 (for educational purposes only) |
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20219 Time(s) |
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W.B. Fishbowl
Age: 57 Joined: 02 Oct 2014 Posts: 2478 Location: New York, New York, USA
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Posted: Tue May 21, 2019 9:50 am Post subject: |
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From the second order, FACL #3143 in back of and outside 100th Street (?) depot in late 1960/early 1961, alongside some of the last New York City Omnibus Old Looks from 1951 which were mainstays of what is now known as 'Tuskegee Airmen'. Notice the route description - "2 PARK AVE. SO. & MADISON AVE." This was necessitated by the name change of Fourth Avenue between Union Square and 32nd Street to Park Avenue South in 1959. Compare that to the FACL #10 run of #1 "4th & MADISON AVES."
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FACL #3143, 1960-1 (For educational purposes only) |
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20217 Time(s) |
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NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 BusTalk's Offical Welcoming Committee
Joined: 18 Dec 2007 Posts: 22970 Location: NEW JOISEY
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Posted: Tue May 21, 2019 11:47 am Post subject: |
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W.B.:
These pictures are OUTSTANDING, and certainly, once again, brings forth the big question "WHY?" we see so few photos of FACCo. New Looks, nor hear much discussion about them.
Of course, double-deckers will always be, even 100 years from now, the "iconic" 5th Avenue bus; however, by NOT devoting more attention to the New Looks, is indeed to ignore a very important part of the Company's rich history.
As an example (and we have discussed this in the past) there is ONE....ONE photo of a New Look in Oliver J. Ogden's book on FACCo; the book is filled with dozens of photos of double-deckers, Old Looks, and MACKS, but only ONE photo of a New Look.
Here's hoping that, if a revised edition is ever published, that we see more detailed coverage on the New Looks.....
"NYO"
PS:
LOVE that cool Studebaker "Lark" taxi following FACCo. #10!!!!
Last edited by NEW YORK OMNIBUS 2629 on Tue May 21, 2019 3:00 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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