Underground Music: Roger G and Side Track

 

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Sol Le Witt Under Columbus Circle, 59th Street

"There is no reason why a piece shouldn't look as it was when it was made. I would like to have my work to always be as it was when it was made."

Sol Le Witt

     

     Sol Le Witt died two years before seeing his mural completed in September 2009, and unveiled on what would have been his 82nd birthday.  250 porcelain tiles made to his exact specifications guarantee that this work of art will always "be as it was when it was made."  In this sense, 59th Street is his legacy, his lasting testament.  

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Soprano Sax and Guitar at Union Square

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Blooming Under 59th Street

"It's for workers.  I had this vision of people getting up really early, half in a dream state, putting on their clothes, drinking a cup of coffee and getting on the subway to go to work.."     

Elizabeth Murray

   Whether Elizabeth Murray, the creator of this mural entitled "Blooming" (1996) truly had the workers in mind when she designed this artwork in not in question.  What is in question is the effect this space has upon these workers.  She further adds, ''A lot of people don't look. But they hesitate a second before they walk in. I think it's the color. They are hit by the color in some way.''   Hit is an understatement.  Assaulted is more accurate.  Jarred, bludgeoned, accosted,  or assailed are also appropriate adjectives to describe the sensation which strikes one rising from the number 4/5 platform. Perhaps Murray is right about the color, or more precisely the garish use of color, or maybe it is the bulbous, graffiti like shapes which conjure in each person threatening images from the City's collective unconscious of 1970's Manhattan where rampant graffiti and violence in the subways was the accepted norm. 

The natural instinct is for one not to stop and linger in wonderment at the artist's bold use of color but to quickly identify which escalator will take one out of this room as quickly as possible.  It does not give the worker a reprieve on his morning commute, but helps ensure he moves along as quickly as possible. 

 

The Problem of Evil

 

    

   Earlier this year a man in Brooklyn soaked a roll of toilette paper in paint thinner, then with his cigarette lighter lit it ablaze. He tossed the fireball into a baby carriage near the entrance of his crowded apartment building which quickly set fire to the stairs and blocked the entrance to firefighters.  Five people died..  When asked by police why he did it, he replied "Demons made me."  I couldn't help but recall this story as I walked past these posters in Union Square.   I find these posters, the obvious product of a very misguided mind, rather unsettling. While demon possession isn't looked upon these days as a strong defence in court, the problem of evil does still exist.        

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Underground Time Travel

 

It was waiting for us. An apparition. I expected to see it shrouded in steam or smoke, a scene from Brief Encounter, but the train just sat there at the 2nd Ave Station like any other subway car on a Sunday morning.  It was the normality of the whole affair which made the experience that much more surreal.  Despite this being a train made up of 6 cars, each from a different time period ranging from 1920 to 1960, there were no announcements, no fanfare, no brass bands or reporters making a spectacle of things. The price of admission: a Metro Card. The conductors called out, "Next Stop Broadway Lafayette!" the doors shut and we were off barreling down the "V" line from 2nd Ave Manhattan making all local stops to Queens Plaza.

At each station the reaction from people on the platform was the same: a strange mix of bewilderment, confusion, and blank stares as people made quick mental calculations as to the probability of this train getting them to where they needed to go.  The train stopped, the doors opened, people got off, more got on, the doors shut, and we were off to the next stop.  A group of Italian tourists looked particularly distressed as they worriedly looked over the wicker covered seats, green painted metal ceiling fans, and vintage advertisements running the length of the car.  Their worry quickly gave way to more mundane matters as a subway map suddenly appeared out of a handbag and soon they were consumed only with getting to the destination of the day. 

****  This train runs each Sunday in December until New Years between 2nd Ave and Queens Plaza, making all local stops.  The rest of the year one can find it at the Transit Museum off Atlantic Ave in Brooklyn.

Holiday Train Show at NY Botanic Gardens

 

"Manhattanism:  to exist in a world totally fabricated by man, i.e. to live inside fantasy."

Rem Koolhass - Delirious New York

In a city so removed from nature that the only natural elements are sky and air; where there exists a relentless assault on the senses, the constant detonation of sound and permanence of garish light, to see the City reconstructed of tree bark and twigs, acorns and leaves, is to enter a fantastic delirium.

The glow radiating from these models transports one to an alternate reality, to a fantasy within the fantasy we call Manhattan.

No one is immune to this fantasy, and each viewer looks upon this creation with a joy springing from hidden memories finally revealed through the fabrication of a place that never existed.

  

It is the quality of fabricated memories which are the mark of a truly great city.  Only a city like New York is great enough to be refashioned from tree bark and still retain its imaginative power.

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Jefferson Street Station, Brooklyn L Train

The mosaic tile adorning the walls of the Jefferson Street station date back to 1928.  The style is Arts and Crafts and our fellow subway rider will find this particular pattern in each station along the Canarsie (L) Line.

I find the use of Arts and Crafts tile throughout the subway of particular interest because it was created in resistance to industrialization; the mechanization of work, the loss of beauty in the unpredictable irregularity which only the human touch can bring, and in so doing, imbue such objects with personality, with humanity.  This is the dark side of industrialization, where vast numbers are at risk of reduction to mere cogs in the wheel of progress.  The warmth of the workshop replaced by the impersonal factory (or in today's world the fluorescent lit cubicle); people condemned to dull, hard days of labor devoid of meaning or purpose.  And yet, it was the tile made by the craftsman, not the assembly line, that was chosen to decorate the next step in the march of industrialization:  mass transit. 

Night Train over Manhattan Bridge, N Line

We approached the Bridge on our bikes. It was night. Approximately 10:00 PM, late summer.   The East River was a black void stretching below us, reaching for infinity.  Looking out over the river towards the Williamsburg Bridge we could not see the horizon for the black sky and black water merged into one giving the appearance that we were suspended high above a great chasm separating two cities.  Immense illuminated towers marked the edge of the chasm, the borders of two planets. To my right the N train ran parallel. I pedalled faster to keep up, to ride side by side, to race the train to the end of the bridge, my eyes locked with a passenger.  I was now beating the train, I was winning!  A manical laugh came deep from within as I looked out again over the vast expanse.  I was flying.

Ghost Train

Jay Street Borough Hall, Departures and Arrivals

Jay street Borough Hall glass mosaic entitled "Departures and Arrivals,"  2009

The artwork -  based on Ben Snead's original paintings - features species that have migrated to Brooklyn as well as one species that is departing. He arranges the species in layers that can be seen from left to right: European starling (originally from England), a house sparrow (Europe), Red Lion fish (Indian Ocean), Monk parrot (South America) and Koi (Japan). The Tiger Beetle is represented on a tile background; a local species that is in decline. The result is a bold and graphic set of images that intrigue and delight passersby during their own departures and arrivals.

The intricate play of nature is the theme of Ben Snead's mosaic and tile artwork, which fills the south mezzanine with bold color and intricate patterns along a specially designed 103 foot-long curved wall. The work exhibits the artist's interest in natural species and ways of arranging them in systems and patterns that highlight the connections and relationships between dissimilar species.

                                                                                                           *** taken from Arts for Transit

42nd Street and 5th Ave Under Bryant Park

Above the hallway leading to the platforms at the 42nd Street 5th Ave subway reads Goethe, "The unnatural, too, is natural."  As one continues down the hall gold glass mosaic in the shape of tree roots break from the ceiling and cut through the glass tile stretching to reach bedrock, searching for water.

This particular evening a violinist plays Pacholbel's canon in D minor.

"The unnatural, too, is natural..."   Everyday about 13 million gallons of water are pumped out of the subway tunnels.  This is just the water that is already there.  When it rains, the number can be twice or three times the amount.  Once, before man pierced the sky with towers of stone, glass, and steel, before Pacholbel wrote his canon, Manhattan was 27 square miles of porous ground punctuated by living roots.  The trees, plants, and streams (more than forty ) provided for an abundance of wildlife, all of which have been virtually extinguished in the quest to transform an island; to conquer nature.

But nature is patient.

At the end of the hallway stands a fantastic glass mosaic installation showing the victory of nature over this tunnel. In granite reads Jung, "Nature must not win the game, but she cannot lose."

Within 36 hours of the pumps stopping the entire subway system will fill with water.  Nature will reclaim its ancient underground streams. Within 20 years, the steel columns that support the East Side Lexington Avenue line, by now rusted through from nature's relentless assault, will begin to buckle.  The street will cave in.  Lexington Ave will once again become a river.

Nature always wins the game.

Union Square 14th Street Station

Union Square 14th Street

 

Borough Hall Faience

The tile work in the Borough Hall station is a  celebration of the subway's arrival into Brooklyn (January 9th, 1908) just 10 years after Brooklyn joined New York City.   Grand, bas relief wreaths set into deep mosiac freize frame the BH monogram.  Above the monogram a green egg and dart moulding caps the wall. The large intricate name panels hang like tapestries and are almost identical to the ones found in Times Square.

The medallions themselves were produced by Grueby Pottery out of South Boston.  Grueby is the most collectible and desirable of American potteries, and for that reason difficult to find, with the exception of the NYC subway stations Astor Place, Bleeker Street, 28th Street, Columbus Circle, and many of the stations along the Lexington Ave Line.  One can also find Grueby tiles on the crossing floor at the Catherdral of St John the Devine on Amsterdam Ave, installed around 1910.

Grueby first introduced his matte green glaze in 1897 which quickly became a symbol of the Arts and Crafts movement and garnered world wide acclaim.  It was sold throughout the United States and Europe by Gustav Stickley, Tiffany & Co., and Marshall Fields.  Today it still remains the most sought after pottery from the Arts and Crafts period.

 

77th Street Downtown 6

 

One of two glass mosaics, entitled "4 Seasons Seasoned," installed in 2004 by Robert Kushner in the 77th Street station of the East Side IRT, it was fabricated by the Miotto Mosaic Art Studios.

"My intention is for people to enter the station, pass through the turnstile, look up and take note, and then go on with their days feeling a little lighter, having glimpsed something beautiful for a passing moment. As people come and go from this stop, either to their job, home, Lenox Hill Hospital, Central Park, or the museums in the neighborhood, recreation, culture, work or healing are often on their minds. Flowers can be associated with all of these activities and become particuarly apt subject matter for this station."
Robert Kushner

Among Kushner's great influences are Uzbek tribal embroideries and Japanese kimonos. Author Justin Spring writes of Kushner’s vision as “work that is sensual and extravagant, but nonetheless has a certain unexpected roughness and drama. In this use of strong contrasts and cross cultural borrowing, these works remind me of other landmarks of western exoticism: the Guerlain perfume Shalimar, for example, with its dense layering of eastern and western scents (musk, flowers, citrus) into a single, heady evocation of Middle-Eastern sensuality; or Borodin’s fusion of Central Asian and Western musical tradition in his Polovetsian dances for the opera Prince Igor; or Bakst’s imaginative reinterpretation of the orient in his designs for the Ballet Russes’ Scheherezade.”

Not only may Kushner's work may be found in the NYC subway, it may also be viewed at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The National Gallery of Art, The Corcoran Gallery of Art, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Denver Art Museum, The Contemporary Museum in Honolulu, The J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles, The Tate Gallery in London, Galleria degli Ufizzi in Florence, and Museum Ludwig in St. Petersburg.

Kafka Takes the N

I always found it interesting that the first thing Gregor Samsa worries about when he finds himself transformed into a giant insect is his job and the fact that he will be late to work. Even though he has never been late in seven years, he fears that this one late morning will jeopardize his career. And sure enough, when he is not on time his boss arrives at the door questioning his parents as to why Gregor is not at the office. Unfortunately, our workplace standards have fallen down a few pegs in recent times. I'm sure there even exists a few employees who would more than welcome being transformed into a giant insect, because not only is this an excuse which cannot be refuted by the boss, reality tv would absolutely love it.

"Watch Steve Brooke on "This Bug's Life" cope with his sudden transformation into a giant insect as he goes on his first date in four months. Will Andrea be able to see past his appearance or will she be repulsed and try to crush him with her shoe?! Stay Tuned!"

In an age where every individual aspires to be god like in their individuality ad nauseum... being transformed into a giant insect would definitely have its benefits. At the least it would separate one from the crowd.

9/11, Friday Morning Commute

Friday morning, 14th Street Union Square subway station. Approximately 30 police officers stand at attention in dress uniform outside the underground precinct.  The low ceiling makes their number seem twice as many. At 8:46 AM a bugle begins Taps. Rising from the subway platform when the first note sounds I am immediately frozen. A less aware commuter following a bit too close, bumps into my shoulder.  More people stop. The bugle resonates, the sound reflects off  the hard surfaces, the white subway tiles, the steel I-Beams, the concrete floors. Each note fills the space, penetrates every crevice, every corner. Above ground it can be heard as well. A low murmur. A distant ghost. When the bugle finishes bagpipes begin. Amazing Grace plays. By now a crowd clusters around the officers, silent.

Around the corner from the underground police station, stretching the entire length of the corridor, approximately 50 or so meters, are the names. They are not carved in stone, nor set in bronze. Instead, they are printed on labels. One label to one tile, and one name to each label, 2,752 in all.

In the days after 9/11, 14th Street was the boundary in which people were not allowed to pass. It is fitting that this unofficial memorial should be here, and remain here after eight years.

Boba Fett Live at Union Square

Boba Fett does indeed play the accordion, and can be heard just steps away from the northwest entrance to the 14th Street Union Square subway.

Ahhh, how the sounds of Paris sounded from the work of his deadly hands. Who knew the ruthless bounty hunter had a soft side? Or perhaps the falling crime rate, and growing unemployment in NYC  forced him to this rather undignified station.

It is rather strange that many Americans associate the accordion with France, and France with Paris, and Paris with love (i.e. passionate sex). Why is this? In my Brooklyn neighborhood, I often see a hipster girl in front of a ramshackle bookstore playing the accordion on Saturdays. How do Americans even learn this instrument?

Philosophy Works.... My Ass it Does!

Thursday morning while riding my usual Manhattan bound number 4 train, a little later than usual, I was struck by a poster claiming to make me the happiest of all the posters I would see that day on the subway. I've seen them on other lines, but today as I was in a more contemplative state, and being a former philosophy student, and not in the mood for mindless bullshit, began a mental examination of what exactly in the hell is The School of Practical Philosophy.

I arrived at some pretty interesting conclusions, but in a nutshell this School is a load of crap, and has nothing to do with philosophy. Please forgive my rather un-philosophic approach on this one, just take my word. And whatever you do, don't give them any money.

Penn Station

Good design creates spaces with intended effects. Public spaces are more interesting than private in that the design is not limited to the whims of the individual, but reflect the collective attitudes and feelings of the culture coursing through that particular time. In this sense, public spaces serve as time capsules into reading the values prevalent when the space was built, and in so doing can be used to measure how far we have come, or how far we have moved backwards as a society.

A magnificent station, such as the original Penn, could only have been built during the optimism carried over from the 19th century rationalists. How else could one explain the 277-foot long waiting room designed to resemble the Roman Baths of Caracalla and the Basilica of Constantine?

The building itself wasn't torn down in 1964 in so much as the rationalist world view which created it.

Lorraine B. Diehl, in her comprehensive history of Penn Station, The Late Great Pennsylvania Station:, writes:

"...the first of the six stone eagles that guarded the entrance was coaxed from its aerie and lowered to the ground. The captive bird was surrounded by a group of officials wearing hard hats. They clustered about their trophy and smiled for photographers. Once the servants of the sun, symbols of immortality, the stone birds that had perched atop the station now squatted on a city street, penned in by sawhorses as their station came around them."

Borough Hall Suicide

In the film "Scent of a Woman." when Al Pacino's character, Col Slade, decides it's time, he checks into the Waldorf Astoria, hires the best call girl in town, drives a Ferrari, then as the moment approaches, dons his dress blues, has one last scotch, and while sitting in his obscenely expensive, and impeccably decorated suite, pulls out his .45. Not a bad way to go. In fact, I'm sure I could find a handful of volunteers on the Monday morning subway that would jump at the chance (no pun intended) to spend their last week on Earth exactly how Pacino's character planned to spend his. The reality is that suicide is rarely this well planned, or done with as much style.

On March 23, 2009, at Borough Hall station, approximately noon, just when many of us were thinking about lunch, a man in his 30s threw himself into the path of a Manhattan bound 4 train. Earlier the same day the scene was repeated in Queens. Of all the ways a person can commit suicide, why choose this way? What is it about the NYC subway that encourages people to jump in front of trains? How much does the interior of a space influence, if at all, the human behavior that takes place in that space?

In the end, Col Slade was talked down by Chris O'Donnell, but it does make me wonder what would have happened if Pacino's character had poorer planning, and as the decision drew near, found himself staggering across a subway platform, instead of sitting in a suite at the Waldorf. Could any appeal have been heard among the scurrying rats and screeching brakes?

Monday Morning Commute

Aldous Huxley once wrote "Most men and women lead lives at the worst so painful, at the best so monotonous, poor and limited that the urge to escape, if only for a few moments is one of the principal appetites of the soul."

Bleak? Maybe. True? Well, just get on the Monday morning subway and make your own judgment. How is it possible for so many people, crammed shoulder to shoulder, confined in oftentimes the most uncomfortable positions, to be so silent? Turn the IPod up, bury your face in your book, newspaper or magazine and try not to dwell on the fact that your weekend is over. Each is engaged in a very personal form of escape. But in trying to isolate ourselves and escape, if only for a moment or two, we all become participants in perhaps one of the biggest examples of mass avoidance.

* photo from Walker Evans

Subway Statistics

4.5 Million - number of passengers the subway handles daily
1.4 Billion - number of passengers the subway handles every year
842 - number in miles of track
468 - number of stations
31,000 - number of turnstiles
13 million - number in gallons of water pumped out of the subway system daily
100,000 - number in miles an average car travels between breakdowns
6,200 - number of cars in subway system
45,600 - number of employees it takes to keep the subway running
4'8" - distance between the rails (track gauge)
1 - number of years the average New Yorker will spend underground during a lifetime

* statistics taken from "The Works" by Kate Ascher