NEXT STOP: GREENE STREET

Schein, Francoise. Subway Map Floating on a New York Sidewalk, 1986.

There's an interesting and little-noticed work of art on Greene Street in Soho. It is a sculpture, albeit one that is embedded in the city sidewalk. It consists of inlaid steel bars representing train lines with circular lights representing the train stops. While it is almost an exact copy of a Manhattan subway map, the work does initially seem to be an abstraction due to its scale and odd-ish self-referential subject matter. Visually, the clean metal Bauhaus-esque lines serve as a shiny, light contrast to the matte, dark concrete of the sidewalk. This sculpture belongs here and these lines feel so naturally integrated in their space probably because of they are reminiscent of the famed cast iron buildings that permeate Soho.

The subway, which lives underground, has been brought above ground perhaps in an effort to get people to see and appreciate it as a whole, not just the parts in which we use here and there to get us from A to B. Alternatively, it could also be said that bringing this massive network above ground and thrusting it into our vision could serve as a way of saying that New York's subway system is a mess and a serious urban planning overhaul is needed.