Red Subway Stations

 

I guess I am still in a little seventies nostalgia after contemplating the globe lights of Washington Square Park.  I love the Bowling Green subway station.  It is the first Manhattan station on the 4 or 5 from Brooklyn and it greets passengers with flame red tiles.

There is a lot of contrast with black and brushed steel, it all still looks modern.  The station after it, Wall Street, used to have intense deep blue tiles, but it has been renovated into more faux victoriana.

 

The surprising thing here was that a policeman waited for me to finish taking this picture before walking past.  Usually, the police in the subway want to look in my bag.  It was a nice change to have one tolerate my photography.  I was worried that they would get all paranoid (there were many, many police at the Bowling Green station).

 

A friend suggested that I check out the Lexington Ave/53rd St station of the F train.  At first blush it did not seem that impressive. 

The combination of the black mold and the red accent is pretty cool though.  I think this station was last worked on when the city ran out of money.  It has a kind of desperate simplicity; black paint on the bottom, white paint on top, long red stripe for color.

I do not think the mold was part of the design but I think it is kind of wonderful.

 

The 49th street station of the R train is another red brick affair.

 

 This station always reminds me of Sesame Street.

 I rather expect to find muppets hanging out on the very seventies benches.

 

However this picture reminds me of coming home late at night when things were a little scary.