Also:
Chambers Street Specials, aka RJ trains, on the 4th Avenue Line.
Wicker seats, later to be replaced by soft red seats. Juvenile delinquents liked to knife up the seats, so they went to plastic. The JD's moved on to graffiti and scratchiti. Shooting each other and us, too.
I preferred the Mack buses over the GMs. I lived in Bay Ridge, and all neighborhood routes were GMs except for the B64 to Coney Island, which were Macks. Staten Island got a lot of the Macks. I think the switch to the fishbowl buses was complete by 64 or 65.
I remember when every car in the system was marred by graffiti, and when very little attention was paid to proper signage. This was the late 70s into the early 1980s.
I remember a different color code than the one they're using now. For example the M was light blue instead of brown.