very simple

I had mentioned a few weeks ago a long simmering thought for a photography project, involving shooting all of the stations in the new york city subway system. it’s a daunting task, as there are over 400 stations and hundreds of miles of tracks. But I would not be daunted. I decided to start mapping out a plan, involving doing very small pieces at a time, and only at my leisure. The first bit of business was to switch from a pay-per-ride to an unlimited metrocard, which I was able to do the other day. Today, I picked a train and a direction, taking the 1 train from my neighborhood down to the end of the line at South Ferry, hopping off at every stop to take pictures of the platform, the mosaics, the tracks, and whatever else was of interest. There were a few stations I had to skip thanks to the vagaries of “weekend work” by the MTA (the train was running express from 14th to Chambers today), but it was a good start. I’m going to be posting separate entries for each station, and I’m going to be doing it relatively slowly so that there’s no great influx of posts, but I thought I’d start with where I started, at the West 72nd Street 1/2/3 station.

It’s your typical Saturday holiday weekend tourist crowd, with buskers, idiots pretending to jump on the tracks, and people who don’t understand how to wait for others to get off the train first before they try to board. I’ve always thought the mosaics in this station were relatively abstract, and everything I can find online about them simply refers to them as “mosaic tapestries”, but as I look at them, they start to remind me of the 91st street garden in Riverside Park, with it’s squared off garden in the middle surrounded by a walkway. In any event, that could all be in my head.

Station opened: October 27, 1904 (renovated, including new control house, 2002)
Original system: IRT
Trains: 1/2/3
Source: Wikipedia

Tags: 1 line, 2 line, 3 line, new york city, photos, subway