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The Metropolitan Transit Authority's Arts & Design program was created in the 1980s to oversee the selection of artists and installation of permanent artworks in subway and commuter rail stations across the city. Since that time, it's become the largest, site-specific public art program in the world and makes commuting for nearly 9 million New Yorkers just a little bit brighter.
In our estimation, the best subway art playfully interacts with commuters or is deeply rooted in the history and tradition of the surrounding neighborhood. In the best cases, it does both. Here are a few of our favorite station art installations in Manhattan.
"Life Underground" — 14th Street/Eighth Avenue Station, Chelsea
Positioned throughout the 14th Street/Eighth Avenue station, which connects A/C/E and L trains in Manhattan, you'll find more than a hundred bronze sculptures by New York-based artist Tom Otterness. Deceptively whimsical on their own, the statues speak to a broader political satire when viewed en masse. Illuminating themes of greed, corruption and economic inequality, the work includes figures whose heads are replaced with moneybags, rodents attempting to spirit away coins, a suited alligator emerging from a manhole and other renderings inspired by 1890s political cartoons of Tammany Hall-era exploitation.
"For Want of a Nail" — 81st Street, Upper West Side
Set within the 81st Street B/C station directly below the American Museum of Natural History, the "For Want of a Nail" installation is the result of a 2000 collaboration with the Museum itself. Artwork here depicts the evolution of earth's life forms in a number of materials, including bronze, granite, ceramic and glass, that are meant to represent the diversity of life. On one stairwell, you feel transported to the center of the earth by walls portraying the planet's many layers replete with fossilized animals. Another stairwell takes you below the ocean's surface with a stunning sea life vignette. On the platforms, extinct animals are depicted in gray, while their living ancestors are rendered in bright color and rich texture. The installation's title, "For Want of a Nail," comes from a centuries' old proverb that ruminates on the interconnectedness of all things and events.
The Harlem Mosaic Murals — 116th, 125th and 135th Streets, Harlem
Head to Harlem on the 2/3 line to explore a trio of 1990s biographical murals that pay homage to Harlem's rich heritage and prominent African Americans. "Flying Home: Harlem Heroes and Heroines" by Faith Ringgold depicts luminaries like Dinah Washington, Sugar Ray Robinson, Josephine Baker, Malcolm X and Zora Neale Hurston as if they are indeed flying through the 125th Street station. Named for a Lionel Hampton song the artist cherished as a child, the glass mosaic artwork is framed in borders that call to mind a warm, heirloom quilt. Vincent Smith's two murals Minton's Playhouse and The Movers and Shakers celebrate Harlem's renowned influencers at the 116th Street station. Sixteen African Americans, from Duke Ellington to Thurgood Marshall are depicted in glass mosaic against a rich gold background that seems to channel sunlight and energy into the below-ground platforms. At 135th Street, Willie Birch's "Harlem Timeline" portrays Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Langston Hughes, Joe Louis, Charlie Parker, Billie Holiday, Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, John Coltrane and Thelonious Monk, to name a few. The bold colors and folk-art-style images are punctuated by textile motifs and tranquil blue hues.
"Memories of Twenty-Third Street" — 23rd Street, Flatiron District
In the 23rd Street N/Q/R/W station — within blocks of Tin Pan Alley, the Garment District and the Ladies' Mile Historic District — artist Keith Godard has rendered 120 hats worn by the likes of P.T. Barnum, William Randolph Hearst, Marie Curie, Eleanor Roosevelt and Sarah Bernhardt. Inspired by his own residency at the nearby Chelsea Hotel, British-born Godard began his design submission by researching turn-of-the-century tenants of the now-infamous hotel. In fact, the hats wrought in glass and marble mosaic not only belonged to well-known Flatiron District influencers, but they are also placed on the wall at the approximate height of their original wearers.
"Subway Portraits" — 86th Street, Upper East Side
Each of the four brand-spanking-new subway stations along Manhattan's brand-spanking-new Second Avenue Subway line feature startlingly apt depictions of New Yorkers that create a rich tapestry of life in the city. And while each installation is worth your perusal, we're particularly drawn to the 12 large-scale portraits created by artist Chuck Close in the 86th Street station. In Close's portraits, some measuring 9-feet-tall, he's captured with hyper-realism the visages of his famous New York friends, including Lou Reed, Cindy Sherman and Philip Glass, plus two self-portraits. The images are arresting, and intimate, even within the vast, and still immaculate, proportions of the Upper East Side station.
