New York City municipal airports WPA poster, ca. 1937
The pattern
This still is filed under Event symbol poster.
Define
A symbol or allegory that makes an event feel like a destination. Not a timetable. A magnet.
Mechanism
Attraction by emblem. Date and venue ride under a picture that already means come.
Verdict
We are filling a room, a night, or a run of dates
Why it works
The two aircraft match the two kinds of facility listed below them: a land airliner overhead for Floyd Bennett Field and North Beach, and a flying boat breaking the water for the East River seaplane bases. The spray turns into the grey-blue panel that carries the type, so the list of airports sits on the same water the plane is leaving. Numbering the fields No.1 and No.2 and signing the sheet with Mayor LaGuardia's name turns a list of addresses into a city network with someone in charge.
The big idea
New York now runs a full air network, land fields and seaplane bases, shown as a sleek airliner overhead and a flying boat lifting off the water.
The offer
The city's municipal airports: No.1 Floyd Bennett Field, No.2 North Beach, and the East River seaplane bases at Wall Street and 31st Street.
The proof
Named officials sign it: F.H. LaGuardia, Mayor, and John McKenzie, Commissioner of Docks.
Lines from the ad
CITY OF NEW YORK MUNICIPAL AIRPORTSNO.1 FLOYD BENNETT FIELD · NO. 2 NORTH BEACHEAST RIVER SEAPLANE BASESSteal this when
When a city or a company must announce several facilities at once and wants them read as one modern network, with each kind of service shown by its own vehicle.
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