New Yorkers Buy Pieces of Their Rock : Collectibles: Old city seals, door frames from brownstones, even subway tokens and turnstiles are collected and sold. It’s a growth market.

New Yorkers have a special way of showing affection for their city. They buy a piece of it.

And at least three city departments, an association and an entrepreneur are satisfying the hunger of the we-love-the-Big-Apple crowd by selling artifacts--actual pieces of infrastructure--and memorabilia from the life of the city.

“I bought one,” said Micki Wolter, referring to a 65-pound cast-iron chunk of New York--the official city seal--from the demolished West Side Highway.

The city seal changed five times between 1623 and 1915, reflecting the city’s Dutch, British and American periods. Hundreds were mounted on the 1937 Manhattan roadway as ornaments.

Wolter is director of the City Publishing Center, which sells the hefty seals for $250 cleaned and $125 “time-grimed.”

When the highway was torn down in the 1970s “some seals were liberated by the populace,” said Wolter. But many were “rescued” by the city, which has sold several hundred, she said.

“I took it to my house on Fire Island and built a frame in the deck railing to hold it. It’s opposite the sliding glass doors to the living room,” she explained.

“I enjoy it tremendously. It’s handsome, unique. A piece of New York.

“I even had a light installed so at night it’s illuminated,” she admitted.

The Architectural Salvage Program also rescues and sells bits of New York.

The program’s warehouse is crowded with pieces of the city’s architectural past, including Art Deco brass stair railings and “philatelic” window signs from the old post office at Grand Central Terminal and hundreds of windows, doors, sinks, bathtubs, steam radiators and fireplace mantels from 19th-Century row houses known as brownstones.

Operated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, the program saves and sells the artifacts for reuse in the thousands of brownstones that are still home to many New Yorkers, said Richard Brotherton, architectural historian with the commission.

Here people buy items “appropriate to the age and style of their property,” he said.

The city’s Transit Museum auctions off parts of the subway system every two years. The 1991 auction brought in $57,363.

In the museum storeroom, the curator surveys items awaiting the next auction in December, 1993.

“This is really cool stuff,” said Tom Harrington.

There are fluted neoclassical cast-iron lampposts used on elevated platforms around 1920, turnstiles, piles of signs--one reading “All persons are forbidden to enter or cross tracks”--and even a large window with attached microphone from a token booth.

“We have friends of the museum in the Transit Authority who are scouts for us,” said Harrington.

The museum keeps several good examples of whatever it finds and auctions the rest, he said.

“We just found old turnstiles, a bunch from 1940 made by G.E. They’re electric. They ran off power from the third rail.

“They weren’t very good and were removed shortly after installation. All except one,” he said. “That’s still in operation at the Wall Street stop on the IRT. Thought to be the only one extant until now.”

Next year “people might have a crack at one of these very rare turnstiles,” said Harrington.

The buyer might be a subway buff from the Electric Railroaders’ Assn., New York division.

The members are a “cross-section of humanity, with 95% being guys,” said Larry Furlong, public affairs officer for the association’s city chapter.

At the New York division’s annual auction, members sell each other memorabilia. Jim Poulos, an accountant, brought along an original IND subway destination sign.

“I’m into the BMT mostly,” he said. “I’m trading up, so to speak.”

Ed Fenning, 42, reminisced that in 1968, the Transit Authority was selling metal 1948 Board of Transportation station maps, put out by Hagstrom. They cost less than $12.

“It was a steal,” said Fenning.

Fenning added that when he was a child, “my mom would take an old valise on the subway, and I’d stand on it and look out the window.”

Ward Wallau transforms old subway tokens--not today’s--into jewelry.

The trouble with tokens produced since 1980 is that the “Y” in NYC is solid, not cut out like it was beginning in 1953.

“It’s another case of corporate America taking something beautiful and ruining it,” said Wallau.

The bracelets, necklaces and earrings made from the old tokens may be the only authentic city relic that is wearable.

The line is just being introduced, but Wallau says all the signs point to strong demand.

“There isn’t much tasteful stuff that says New York.”