History Set Straight for Lexington Mapmaker Joan Charysyn

LEXINGTON - New York Transit Museum recently hosted an exhibit on the “Vignelli Map,” a masterpiece - and professional misnomer -  for Joan Charysyn (right) who recently visited the archives center with her daughter Katrina, grandson Ethan and son-in-law Rob (snapping the photo). Katrina is pointing to a color photo of her mother, back in the day, wearing her favorite 1960’s, blue cloud t-shirt.

The original design comp (comprehensive) created in 1970 at the onset of the subway system map project. Joan Charysyn, a resident of the town of Lexington, has only recently been given due recognition for designing what became known as the “Vignelli Map.” Joan has also won awards for her graphic design work on the Greene County Travel Guide, working with her husband Taris Charysyn.

LEXINGTON - There is a Matryoshka Doll story within a story within a story about a visit by Joan Charysyn to the New York Transit Museum.

Charysyn, for the past 45 years, has lived along usually un-busy Route 42 between the hamlets of Lexington and West Kill, a long way from where she made a professional name for herself that was pilfered. Almost.

In an earlier stage of her life, she worked as a graphic artist in busy New York City for Unimark International, co-founded by Massimo Vignelli.

Remember that name, Vignelli, because you will also be asked to forget it, or at least put it in its proper Matryoshka Doll place.

The trip Charysyn made to the Transit Museum, in mid-March, was her first in many years to the Big Apple, the borough of Brooklyn to be exact.

An exhibit had been set up that included a unique New York City subway system map made in the 1970’s by Vignelli…oops, wait a darn minute.

Vignelli was in charge of Unimark International’s New York office, but it was Charysyn who actually created the map “from start to finish,” in her words, although what’s-his-name got the credit - or took it.

Either way, that has been a common, albeit unjust, scenario with artists and businesses, perhaps most prominently with Walt Disney.

Setting the record straight, Charysyn, then in her early 20’s, was, “working on elements of the basic scheme and artwork, and overseeing the printing of the map, despite receiving little credit for it until recently.”

Those aren’t Charysyn’s words. They are from a website at Geographics, sellers of rare and antique maps who say Charysyn, “worked with Italian designer Massimo Vignelli and the American firm he co-founded.

“Though Vignelli’s name has become synonymous with the New York City Subway map his firm produced in 1972, the work was in fact the result of the collaboration of several individuals including Bob Noorda, Raleigh D’Adamo and Charysyn,” Geographics states.

“Though Charysyn’s contributions to Vignelli’s maps have historically been obscured, she has received some recognition, and was the subject of a tribute at the New York City Transit museum in 2024,” Geographics states.

“Although disparaged by some for its aesthetics, the “Vignelli map” was a masterpiece of graphic design and infographics, akin to Harry Beck’s 1933 map of the London Underground which similarly prioritized simplicity and usability over comprehensiveness  or aesthetics,” Geographics states. 

“Both iconic maps understood the basic principle that the vast majority of users simply needed to know how to get from one station to another and where to transfer, if necessary,” Geographics states.

“Thus, Vignelli’s (or perhaps, rather Charysyn’s) map retains an influence on todays New York City Subway map, although as with Beck’s map, later mapmakers have been unable to refuse the urge to add more detail and geographic accuracy,” Geographics states. 

“Charysyn also designed a similar but less well-known representation of the New York City commuter rail network,” the Geographics website states.

As for Noorda and D’Amado, they were enjoined to the company but not a hands-on part of the 3-year project culminating in the Charysyn map, a moniker with a nice ring to it for the finally, duly acknowledged mother.

Vignelli, over the years, extended mea culpas for the shading, which had light initially shed upon it in a book by Peter Lloyd, ultimately unveiling Charysyn’s Matryoshka Doll hidden truth to the world.

“I have such mixed emotions about it all,” says Charysyn who later had a career in customer service for a health care firm, prior to retiring.

Her journey to the Transit Museum was prompted by a 50th Anniversary exhibit of the publication of the 4’ by 5’ map, printed in 1972.

While aware of the exhibit, “I wasn’t sure I wanted to go,” says Charysyn, finally convinced to do so by her daughter, Katrina.

“Katrina was proud of what I had accomplished, so I went,” says Charysyn who, despite the bittersweetness, found it “heart-warming.”

As it turned out, the 50th Anniversary exhibit had been removed, a personal disappointment that became delight when Charysyn discovered the map is now included in the Museum’s permanent collection.

The Museum, on its website, states it is dedicated to telling and preserving the stories of mass transportation, “the extraordinary engineering feats, workers who labored in the tunnels over 100 years ago, communities that were drastically transformed, and the ever-evolving technology, design, and ridership of a system that runs 24 hours a day, every day of the year.”

A copy of Charysyn’s map also resides in the Museum of Modern Art whose website states, “when New York’s independently managed subway lines came under centralized governmental control in 1953, it became clear that the perplexing experience of navigating the vast network needed to be addressed. 

“This subway map was an attempt to simplify an earlier three-color
version that was geographically accurate but visually confusing,” MoMa states.

“It emerged from a more general, system-wide graphic identity that the city’s Transit Authority had invited Vignelli and his team…to create…on the recommendation of MoMA curator Mildred Constantine,” MoMA states. 

“For the map, Vignelli, with Charysyn as lead designer, eliminated winding train lines and topographical references in favor of a rectilinear format with forty-five- and ninety-degree angles,” MoMA states.

“Each stop on the brightly colored lines is indicated by a simple dot, with pale, neutral colors and white showing waterways and landmasses in the background,” MoMA states.

“Initially panned by New Yorkers,” MoMA states, “it was replaced in 1979 by a more familiar topographic approach. Today the map is widely admired.”