Subway Map Floating on a New York Sidewalk Part 2 [The Work Itself]

[This is my own photo]

Last week, I gave a brief history of the artist of Subway Map Floating on a New York Sidewalk, Francoise Schien. I also mentioned that I would begin to talk about the work itself the week after. Today, I deliver my promise by starting to dig into the details of Francoise Schien's Subway Map Floating on a New York Sidewalk.


The piece measures 87 feet wide by 12 feet long. According to Art Nerd New York, in 1985 "the entire block was dug up to install this piece" (Art Nerd New York). I doubt that the entire city block in SoHo had to be torn up to install this piece, but most likely just a large part of Greene St.

The dots next to the lines are actually LED lights which come on at night, and are supposed to represent subway stations in Manhattan. (Art Nerd New York). The steel bars that are supposed to represent the subway lines themselves are half an inch wide. The map is thought to be from the period between the mid-70s and mid-80s, because some subway lines are represented that the MTA decided to retire at a later point in time. Notable is the presence of the JFK Express line that was retired in 1990, and the (RJ) train which was the predecessor of today's (R) train. [The (RJ) was an extension of today's (R) along the Nassau Street Line (J/Z) to Chambers Street] (Forgotten New York). The LED lights seem to show signs of being color coded at one point.

The project cost an estimated $30,000 to produce in the 80s, which is equivalent to about $65000 in today's money. (Inflation Calculator) All this money seemed to be worth it though, as the work won the City Art Commission award for the best work of art that year. It is assumed that the Sculptor's Guild, located in the SoHo Building which towers over the area of sidewalk in which the work is installed, had installed the piece, but no concise evidence exists of the group who had actually installed the work. (Forgotten New York)

The other boroughs are strangely missing from the "map", so the work only shows the subways in Manhattan,sadly leaving my home borough, Queens, and my home station, Flushing Main Street [at the end of the (7) line], out. Combined with the fact that it shows the subways as of the 70s and 80s (the graffiti era!), along with no route markers shown, unfortunately makes this work ineffective as an actual subway map. Still, the work gives viewers an abstract, minimalist representation of the Manhattan subway network as a whole.

Works Cited

Friedman, Morgan. "The Inflation Calculator." The Inflation Calculator. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 July 2014.

"NYC’s MOST UNUSUAL SUBWAY MAP." Weblog post. Forgotten New York. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 July 2014.

Zimmer, Lori. "Subway Map Floating on a NY Sidewalk | Art Nerd New York." Art Nerd New York RSS. N.p., 17 Jan. 2014. Web. 27 July 2014.

Subway Map Floating on a New York Sidewalk: Part 1 [The Biography of Francoise Schien]

For my final project in ARH 330 at Stony Brook University, I chose Subway Map Floating on a New York Sidewalk by Francoise Schein.

 
(obtained from Flickr: https://c1.staticflickr.com/7/6016/6005970012_0e02bf27c2_z.jpg)

Born in Brussels, Schein was a Belgian artist who studied urban design at Columbia University and architecture in La Cambre School in Brussels. In addition to being a visual artist, she is also an architect and urban planner. She has been developing a network of large urban mapping projects around the world. She focuses on cross-discipline projects that highlight the relationship between urban planning, ethics, citizenship, and art in general. (Francoise Schein's Projects). She currently lives in Paris.

She is the founder of INSCRIRE, a non-profit organization promoting public art throughout the world that emphasizes human rights principles and cultural diversity. Schein herself has lived throughout the world, and Subway Map Floating on a New York Sidewalk, along with her other works worldwide, focus on concepts of human rights. (Urban Media Archaeology)

After she left La Cambre School, she came to New York for 11 years to study urban design at Columbia University. Subway Map Floating on a New York Sidewalk is actually her first piece of art. At this time, she wasn't focusing her work on human rights. She starts doing this when she returns to Europe in 1989.

Her other works are located in such places as Lisbon, Stockholm, Haifa, and Berlin. She has designed a number of metro stations in various cities such as the Westhafenviertel station in Berlin, and the Universitetet station in Stockholm. After Berlin, she began work on the world's first "Garden of Human Rights" located in the Rhodendron-Park Bremen in Germany.

This first post is primarily a background of the artist, I have not actually visited the work yet, but I would like to get there before my next post (which will begin to piece apart this fascinating piece of public art). There are no subway stops that bring you directly there, but the closest station is supposedly the Prince Street N/R station, two blocks away.

Stay tuned for my next post, which will begin to explore this amazing work. I will also take my own pictures and post them here.

Works Cited

"Francoise Schein." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 28 June 2014. Web. 19 July 2014.

JONATHAN. "Subway Map Floating on a NY Sidewalk." Urban Media Archaeology. N.p., 12 Nov. 2011. Web. 19 July 2014.

Schein, Francoise. "About Françoise." Web log post. Francoise Scheins Projects. N.p., 2 June 2010. Web. 19 July 2014.