Billy's Antiques To MTA: Come Get Your Garbage

After being arrested and hauled off to the tombs for allegedly knowingly selling stolen MTA property—his subway signs confiscated as evidence—William 'Billy' Leroy, the proprietor of Billy's Antiques & Props on Houston St, left a message for the MTA on the one sign the police neglected to round up. 

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Going Back To Breuckelen: Remixing Subway Signs For The 1600s

Going to Breuckelen? You can time travel to the year 1646, or hop on the 4, 5, or 6 train at 86th and Lexington at the NW entrance.

NYC The Blog got off downtown, so can not confirm if the train really does bring you back to 1646.

See below for a larger version of the cleverly altered subway sign, or visit the photos on Flickr.

Has anyone seen other signs remixed for the 1600s?

UPDATE: A reader informs that Examiner.com spied one in August of 2009 in the Fulton St station.

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UPDATED: William “Billy” Leroy, Owner Of Billy's Antiques Arrested; 'The End Of The Subway Signs At Billy's'

NYC The Blog has learned from William “Billy” Leroy of Billy's Antiques and Props on E Houston that he was arrested yesterday by the NYPD at his establishment: "hauled away in cuffs and let out 8 hrs later." The NYPD and Transit Police were there requisitioning the subway signs Billy's has long been selling in the aftermarket, and it seems the arrest stems from those transactions.

Yesterday, Young Manhattanite reported the NYPD swarmed Billy's Antiques and Props on E Houston at around 11am for unknown reasons, using bolt cutters and documenting the scene with a video camera. NYC The Tumblr dug up a photo of the scene from Twitter user @andyellwood (seen at right).

In an email to NYC The Blog this morning, Billy fills us in the events that transpired yesterday, after selling the subway signs without incident for ten years:

Billy's Antiques And Props. And Subway Signs

Yesterday's post about the surplus merchandise available from the MTA, including subway signs you can get both at the MTA, and at Billy's Antiques and Props, elicited comment from Billy himself when he noted that he sells his signs like real estate, with the better locations selling for more money. His comment left NYC The Blog yearning for more information and we dug deeper via email, asking Billy where he gets his subway signs -which always seem to be from desirable locations such as the L train from Manhattan to Brooklyn- or the ABCD sign from Yankees stadium for instance. Does he buy them? Have a secret source within the MTA who offers him first dibs? Find them? All of the above?

Billy confided that he would only tell me his secret in person, and only if I was sworn to secrecy, as of course I would be, as he noted that his "source is a trade secret. If I made it public then every shop would have them I am the only shop to my knowledge that sell the signs legally and have had been selling them for 10 years."

What's more, Billy offered an important consideration when buying a sign, noting that the MTA no longer makes enamel signs, such as the ones he carries, instead today using stickers affixed to metal.

Aside from the great value they have simply as comforting objects for any resident of NYC, who surely would all like to hang a sign from their own stop on their living room wall, Billy speculated that the "craze" for subway signs started with an appearance in a movie, of course, when "Woody Allen did a whole Bedroom scene with Diane Keaton in the mid 80's," and an "8 ft Canal Street [sign] with English Chinese writing on it," was a part of the apartments decoration. According to Billy, today those same signs for $3,500.

"The MTA has had a shop for quite a few years now but like any bureaucracy they never really have the good signs and if they do, they are snapped up by collectors. I've seen some great signs that I sold sell for lots of money on eBay."

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