The subways used to be a lot prettier.
And now the timeless beauties who once reigned as “Miss Subways,” and had their faces plastered on train posters, are having a reunion at Ellen’s Stardust Diner in Times Square May 2.
The stunning straphangers would apply for the bi-monthly contest — which ran from 1941 to 1976 — by sending in their photo.
Three of the winners, now in their 80s, recalled how they became local celebrities after their pictures appeared on 14,000 train placards for 6 million daily commuters to admire.
Ellen Hart Sturm, Miss Subways March-April 1959, recalled getting handwritten marriage proposals.
“I don’t even know to this day how they got my address,” she told The Post. “I was only going on 18, so I think I was not ready for marriage.
“Although back in the day they told you that if you were 21, you were an old maid,” recalled Sturm, who is now the owner of the famed diner that bears her name — and who still rides the subway.
Now 82, Sturm was a senior at Jamaica High School in Queens, and had just won best-looking in her class, when she applied.
“My whole neighborhood encouraged me to send in my picture,” she said.
The photos of Miss Subways candidates were selected by the late John Robert Powers, founder of the Powers Agency, believed to be the world’s first modeling agency.
The finalists, who had to reside in the five boroughs and use the subway, were then interviewed by the New York Subways Advertising Co., which chose the winners.
Sturm, who now lives on the Upper West Side, recalled sitting down with a company rep, who inquired about her grades and hobbies.
“He asked if I was a good student, I said, ‘so so,’” she remembered. “I said, ‘I sing and I want to be a famous singer one day,’ and that I was in All City choir. And he found me attractive and interesting.”
Sturm, who now lives on the Upper West Side, recalled sitting down with a company rep, who inquired about her grades and hobbies.
Although some winners received a bracelet with a gold-plated subway token on it, Sturm did not.
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“I didn’t get anything. I didn’t even get a free ride on the subway,” which at the time cost 15 cents, she said.
Mary Gardiner Timoney, Miss Subways May-June 1953, grew up in Washington Heights and was working for Scandinavian Airlines when her female boss sent in her photo.