Vernon-Jackson Ave’s

This is something that could drive you crazy if you let yourself think about it too much. This tile signage at the Vernon Boulevard/Jackson Avenue subway station is big, beautiful, and grammatically wrong. The apostrophe in AVE’S is entirely unnecessary. The signage does not intend to communicate that this station is “Vernon & Jackson Avenue’s”. That would suggest that this subway station belongs to those two streets, necessarily invoking an apostrophe indicating the possessive.

Nor is there reason to think that AVE’S is a contraction of AVENUE IS, because what sense would that make? If that was the intent then an ellipsis should trail after this sign, followed by an entry box for a status update.

The apostrophe is the standout grammatical WTF culprit in this sign, which repeats verbatim several times throughout the station. The next error would appear to be that Vernon is not even an Avenue. It is a Boulevard. The sign should communicate that this is Vernon Boulevard and Jackson Avenue, not this failed Vernon-Jackson Ave’s which, as an intersection, does not even exist.

This flub, however, is forgivable on historical grounds. Throughout Astoria and Long Island City one sees usage of street and avenue names long ago renamed. The 39th Avenue station, for instance, is referred to in MTA signage as Beebe Avenue, though rarely is it referred to as such by any other entity. Today’s Vernon Boulevard was originally known as Vernon Avenue.

This, however, does nothing to excuse that errant apostrophe.

The MTA managed to get it right on other signage throughout the station but the Vernon-Jackson Ave’s is big and somewhat baffling. I’ve seen the semi-famous BRODAWAY mistake at the G train Broadway stop in Brooklyn, but I think this gaffe is even more… gaffey … on account of it being repeated so many times.