New York City gets thousands and thousands of new visitors every day, coming to see for themselves what the heartbeat of the city feels like first-hand. They come to enjoy the live performance, the spectacular restaurants, and the five star New York hotels , to see if the public perception matches reality. There are many visitors who come and never even see the excellent subway system in the city, perhaps out of fear of crowds, or simply wanting to avoid the hassle and the grit of traveling by metro.
But there is a whole life here, and one that’s a daily experience for New Yorkers. It’s an exhilarating experience for first-time visitors, as the rush of the trains and the movement of so many people making a kind of splendid organized chaos really does feel like entering into another world. Many people have noticed the tiles decorating some of the stations, and these are art works that were started at the turn of the 20th century. There are also plenty of other fascinating art works here. About twenty years ago, with the help of the Metro Transit Authority , the Arts for Transit project started, and there are now more works in the stations than ever before, offering an unusual glimpse into the interior life of the artists and people of the city.
Some of the thought behind the project developed in response to the subway graffiti, realizing that there was an enormous, untapped creative possibility here for demonstrating works of stunning visual art. Over the past two decades, the Arts for Transit has sponsored over a hundred new works, by many of New York’s most renowned artists, to display their inner visions in the subway stations. There are also street musicians and performers connected to the project. In part, this, too, was an effort to control the traffic of subway performance all over the city, and to give the artists a little protection so that they could play for a few dollars with the cooperation of the authorities. It’s another view of the city, and one that is radically centered in New York.