STATIONARY

For Upper East Side residents, the opening of the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway line this month is nothing short of a miracle. Decades in the works, it’s an improvement that East Siders have dreamt about, to alleviate crowding and delays on the 4, 5 and 6 platforms during rush hour.

What can one say about the design of the three new stations that were unveiled on New Years Day, at 72nd Street, 86th Street and 96th Street? All have a similar parti: entrances with escalators from street level, generous mezzanine levels that run the entire length of the platform, and platforms that are far wider and brighter (and, right now, cleaner) than existing stations. These stations were planned pragmatically, with more waiting room, improved circulation spaces, a greater number of entrances. And they seem to have been designed empirically, after studying new transit stations in Asia and Europe. All three have the same bland, vaguely futurist, late modern palette of soft grey granite, polished concrete and brushed metal. Their mezzanines have vaulted ceilings, expressed with curved concrete ribs and accented with linear LED light coves. There are surprising moments of boldness. For example, at the mezzanine of the 86th Street station, the ceiling has been constructed with a triangulated grid of deep, dramatically-lit concrete coffers. But the stations, while intelligently planned, have no deep architectural character. They’ve been built in Inoffensive Public Works Modern.

And where is the subway tile? This simple, iconic white 3x6 ceramic tile, which would have tied the new stations indelibly to the older lines to which they’re connected, is nowhere to be seen. Instead, interior passages at all three stations have been finished in a 1′x2′ white porcelain tile with a dull, mottled finish that seems to absorb natural light. Rather then grout, these tiles have been installed with with plastic filler strips, about 1/8″ wide. And these strips have been installed so carelessly, out of plumb with the tiles and out of alignment with tile edges, that they feel as if they are going to pop out. This tile might have been a cost- and time- saving measure. But it’s a sloppy, dispiriting finish, that covers acres of the interiors at these three new stations. One can’t help feeling that, instead, for each one, constructing a simple, brightly-lit shed, finished in neatly-laid subway tile, and graced with original artwork, would have worked just fine.

January 28, 2017 by Nalina Moses

UNDERGROUND THEATER

To much fanfare, and some surprise, the northernmost tail of the Second Avenue Subway line opened, as scheduled, on New Years Day. Initial publicity focused on the artworks gracing the new stations at 72nd Street, 86th Street, and 96th Street. These were coordinated by the NYCMTA’s Arts for Transit committee and funded by its Percent for Art Program, that allocates 1% of total construction costs for all major projects to new site-specific artworks. For these stations the MTA chose, wisely, three well-known artists: Sarah Sze, Chuck Close and Vik Muniz. But it gave them blank stretches of 1′x2′ tile to decorate, rather than soliciting works that were deeply integrated with the architecture of the stations, or that might even have inspired the design of the stations.

At the 72nd Street station Sze created scenes of whirling debris in blue and white that are rendered in custom porcelain tiles. The motifs brighten station walls along the escalators and mezzanine. But the tiles remains flat, ornamental rather than imagistic; they never really open into a fictional space. At the 86th Street station Close recreated twelve of his signature pixellated headshot portraits in nine-foot-high mosaic panels along the entrances and mezzanine. The renderings and tilework are skillful, but the celebrity painters he depicts, including himself, evoke the streets of SoHo and Chelsea, not the Upper East Side.

At the 96th Street station Muniz also rendered figures in mosaic tiles. But he’s based these life-size, head-to-toe figures on informal photographs of random contemporary New Yorkers. They represent a broad, comically accurate swathe of the population, including a married gay couple, a mother, a man in a turban, a woman in a sari, a gaggle of high school boys, a cop with a cherry popsicle, an actor in a tiger costume, on old man with a ukelele, and two uptight middle-aged hipsters. These figures create a strong rhythm as one walks the mezzanine, and hold the eye. On opening weekend visitors slowed to examine these characters closely, and stopped to photograph their favorites and to be photographed alongside them. Like the improptu post-election sticky note message wall at Union Square Station, Muniz’ mosaics at 96th Street make powerful street theater.

Photograph courtesy of NYCMTA and Vik Muniz.

January 02, 2017 by Nalina Moses