Strangers on a Train

The New York City subway system is a world unto itself. My daily commute offers everything from the mundane to the spectacular. It intertwines uninterrupted solitude with concentrated togetherness, often presenting unexpected moments shared between strangers. In the subway I have observed and displayed the range of human emotion in episodic segments between the overhead announcement to “stand clear of the closing doors please.”

I easily become lost in my own thoughts on the train, despite an awareness that each person around me carries his or her own story. And like all things New York, it is the culture that breaks through moments of isolation to reconnect you to the permeating pulse of the city.

“Sometimes while I ride the subway I try to look at each person and imagine what they look like to someone who is totally in love with them. I think everyone has had someone look at them that way, whether it was a lover, or a parent, or a friend, whether they know it or not. It’s a wonderful thing, to look at someone to whom I would never be attracted and think about what looking at them feels like to someone who is devouring every part of their image, who has invisible strings that are connected to this person tied to every part of their body. I think this fun pastime is a way of cultivating compassion. It feels good to think about people that way, and to use that part of my mind that I think is traditionally reserved for a tiny portion of people I’ll meet in my life to appreciate the general public.”

-Dean Spade

In addition to the unofficial, and often unsanctioned, art and culture that exists below New York City, the MTA also runs an Arts for Transit program to bring public art into the subway system. Included in this program is the Music Under New York initiative as well as an initiative in which the MTA commissions a selection of artists to develop posters to be displayed on the subways.

Just recently, illustrator Sophie Blackall, of Missed Connections – a blog in which Blackall illustrates Missed Connections submissions from Craigslist – developed this poster for the Arts for Transit Program.

“Needless to say I love the subway. I glean all my characters from my fellow passengers. The same sorts of things which attracted me to Missed Connections, I find on the train: subtle interactions, eccentricity, beauty, sorrow, secrets, kindness, generosity, excellent hairdos. Every sort of person imaginable and unimaginable. “