'Active' Handicapped Sign, Created in Wenham, Will Now be Used in the Big Apple

A "passive, even helpless" symbol showing a person in a wheelchair to mark handicapped access to everything from parking spaces to restrooms has been redesigned by a group from Gordon College.

A recent report in The Chronicle of Higher Education says that the redesigned logo - showing an active person in a wheelchair pushing it - will now be used in New York City.

"It's such a forward-moving thing," Victor Calise, commissioner of the New York mayor's Office for People With Disabilities, told the Chronicle.

City officials plan to begin this summer putting the new logo all over the Big Apple. New York's decision to use Gordon's redesigned symbol could "spark similar updates worldwide," the Chronicle said.

The effort to redesign the logo was led by Brian Glenney, a Gordon College assistant professor of philosophy. It caught the attention of Calise after the college's director of marketing communications, Cyndi McMahon, called the United Nations and other groups she thought may use the new symbol. It was an UN employee that got Calise's attention in Mayor Michael Bloomberg's office.

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