NYC DOT Releases Limited Batch of New Edgar Allan Poe Street Signs

Sign at West 84th Street and Broadway marks street on which Poe wrote “The Raven” while rooming at the Brennan Farmhouse during his third stint in New York City

A master of the macabre, Poe wrote several of his works while living in the city

One sign will be in the traditional form, while a custom, spooky version will also be offered

NYC DOT announced a limited number of authentic Edgar Allan Poe Street signs go on sale Edgar Allan Poe Street is located on the Upper West Side and honors the legendary Gothic horror and dark romanticism writer and poet. Though several cities were influential in Poe’s writing career, he penned his most famous work, “The Raven,” on West 84th Street in 1845 while living there with his wife. The release is part of the agency’s monthly ‘sign drops,’ when it sells authentic New York City street signs produced at the NYC DOT Sign Shop in Maspeth, Queens. The NYC DOT Sign Shop produces over 70,000 signs each year and maintains a million signs across the five boroughs.

A total of 50 signs will be available for $100 each, 25 of each version, and limited to one total per customer. Signs will be sold through the CityStore, the official store of the City of New York, with proceeds supporting the city’s general fund. Previous sign drops have sold out quickly.

Edgar Allan Poe’s career includes several stints in New York City, where he worked for several publications such as the New York Evening Mirror and the Broadway Journal, and where he also authored “Poems,” “The Balloon Hoax,” and “Eureka.” His writing style was focused on themes such as psychological terror and obsession relating to the claustrophobia and paranoia of 19th-century urban life, the concepts of grief, mortality, and decomposition garnered from personal tragedies and the loss of loved ones during his time in New York City, as well as cosmogony and science versus the supernatural. After the Upper West Side, the Poe family would love in Murray Hill, Manhattan and in the Fordham/Kingsbridge section of the Bronx, which is home to Poe Park and the landmarked Poe Cottage.

Monthly sign drops from NYC DOT feature signs for iconic New York City streets, commemorations of famous New Yorkers, celebrations of special occasions, and other custom releases. NYC DOT began its monthly drops in June 2024, with the release of Christopher Street/Stonewall Place street signs to commemorate Pride Month.

Other recent sign drops include:

• Union Square East and Union Square West
• Don’t Block the Box
• Champions Way
• Welcome to the Bronx: “The Bronx Leads”
• Knickerbocker Avenue in Bushwick
• Ruth Bader Ginsburg Way
• Welcome to Manhattan: “Hello, gorgeous!”
• St. Mark’s Place
• 5th Avenue
• Bleecker Street
• Mulberry Street
• Hip Hop Boulevard to celebrate the genre’s musical and cultural legacy
• Welcome to Queens: The World’s Borough
• Gay Street in recognition of Pride Month
• Wall Street
• Leaving Brooklyn: Fuhgeddaboudit
• East 161st Street and Shea Road in honor of baseball’s opening day
• Love Lane to recognize Valentine’s Day
• Broadway in celebration of Broadway Week
• Cornelia Street to honor the street’s prominence among pop music fans

About the NYC DOT Sign Shop

The New York City DOT Sign Shop is in Maspeth, Queens and manufactures over 70,000 signs each year. A team of 32 Sign Shop employees hand-make street signs, highway signs, directional signs, parking signs, and more. There are about one million NYC DOT signs in use across the 6,000 miles of streets in New York City.

The monthly drops are the latest iteration of sales that have historically been available from the Sign Shop.

About CityStore

Located at the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building at 1 Centre Street in lower Manhattan, for nearly three decades CityStore has been the official retail store of the City of New York.

The first New York City CityStore—originally known as CityBooks—opened in December 1981 at 61 Chambers Street and was a small store that primarily sold copies of the Green Book and a few select souvenirs. In 1996, renovations to the building caused the store to relocate to the David N. Dinkins Municipal Building, where the physical store has resided since. Between 1997 and 1998, CityBooks was rebranded to CityStore in an effort to expand beyond book sales and grow the city’s goodwill with visitors and New Yorkers.

Visit CityStore in person at 1 Centre Street, shop online, and follow on Instagram and Facebook.