Until about 10 years ago, it was standard practice on the Thruway to label the control city south of Albany, “N.Y. City”.

Since about 2000, the name of the control city has been changed to “New York” to be consistent with signs on Long Island and New Jersey that refer to the control city as “New York”.

The reason for calling the control city “N.Y. City” was originally to avoid confusion by out of state drivers, who might confuse the city for the state.

Generally control cities use different first letters of the alphabet to avoid confusion. Albany’s Northside Expressway, signed as I-90 is an oddity. The control cities on the Northside Expressway are “Buffalo” and “Boston”.

The reason is mostly historical – the Northside Expressway was built in 1969, almost 15 years after the Masspike and Thruway were completed. At the time, the control cities were “Boston”, “N.Y. City”, “Albany” and “Buffalo” along the Thruway and Masspike.

The Northside Expressway wasn’t even envisioned at the time and nobody foresaw the problem of having “Buffalo” and “Boston” as the control cities around Albany.