In the 1960s, thousands of yellow nuclear fallout shelter signs were adhered to buildings in New York City. Now the city has quietly begun removing some of the corroding signs, saying many are misleading Cold War relics that no longer even designate functional shelters. The shelter program was prompted by then President John F. Kennedy in 1961 in cities across the nation as a response to the anxieties over the nuclear arms race between the United States and the former Soviet Union.