By Joseph Morales

               On a Manhattan-bound Q train when passing DeKalb Avenue, right before the train begins to cross the Manhattan Bridge, you’ll notice an array of brilliant colors shining through the subway car window. As someone who rode through many of New York City’s subway tunnels you might wonder, how’d that get there and why does it exist?

                  That magnificent piece of artwork is known as Masstransiscope. The area in which the artwork is located is what used to be the Q line Myrtle Avenue Subway Station.  An area of track around the DeKalb Avenue station was the choke point of the BMT Broadway operation, with many route crossings and merges happening there.  To resolve the issues that occurred with this amount of congestion the Transit Authority decided to rebuild the area with new tracks to eliminate the grade crossings and hold trains approaching merge points. As a result the Myrtle Avenue station was closed permanently. 

                  After being abandoned for almost 25 years, Bill Brand saw an opportunity. With a sponsorship from the arts organization, Creative Time, Inc., Bill took over the abandoned station in 1980.  He went on to place a 300 foot long painting made with reflective material in a special enclosure with 228 narrow slits on the front side near the train and the painting on the far side. When riding the train, you can see the work through the slits as the light reflects off the painting and back through the slits. When passing by, this looks like a colorful animation through the slits. However, its vibrant color scheme could not save it from the soot that darkens the other subway tunnels throughout the city and it had to be restored in 2012.

                 It is astonishing how Bill Brand turned an abandoned subway station into such a creative masterpiece. Hopefully it can be enjoyed by subway riders for years to come.

Part of the Masstransiscope Project

Acknowledgements

Brennan, Joseph. Abandoned Stations : Myrtle Ave, http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/abandoned/myrtle.html. Accessed 23 May 2022

“Masstransiscope.” Creative Time, https://creativetime.org/projects/masstransiscope/. Accessed 23 May 2022

Brand, Bill. “1980 – Masstransiscope.” Bill Brand, https://www.billbrand.net/public-art. Accessed 23 May 2022.