Completely by mistake, once I got off the subway at 42nd street, to take the S for Grand Central Station, I came across a subtle, funny piece someone had put up on the corridor. After combing the net I found some hard facts about it on a rather odd nyc subway art website, and the piece is by Norman B. Colp (1991). Each phrase was short (key), and pitch perfect. The jaded ad-slogan style fought really well with a bit of wry humor and a spot of imagist poetics against all the 'happy time' doodle projects which are on the walls of the same corridor. I think the general concept of subway art is an attempt to mitigate the austere atmosphere down there. What's so successful about this piece however, is that it taps directly into how unpleasant and average such a walk, job or life tends to feel like when you're in corridor S. By contrast, when it must be well over 30 degrees and the B train still hasn't arrived, the 'jolly' scenery feels a bit like a slightly off key joke. Incidentally, the original tile work on many of the subway stations (that cobalt blue of 'Bleaker Street' for example) are beautiful, well executed designs.
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