A display of old subway wall decorations in the Union Square Subway Station near the stairway to the downtown number 6 train.

I didn’t see a plaque or anything, but it looks like they cut the whole thing out when doing a renovation. I see a layer of brick, concrete and maybe a bit of Manhattan bedrock, or is that more concrete?

14th Street-Union Square Complex

Mary Miss Framing Union Square, 1998

Glass, enameled steel, and aluminum frames highlighting historic and architectural elements throughout station complex

Mary Miss worked with architect Lee Harris Pomeroy to use the rehabilitation of Union Square station as an opportunity to uncover hidden structural elements, cables, and conduits – some still functional and others replaced by new improvements. Old decorative work reappeared during construction, such as mosaics, pilasters, name plaques, and six terra cotta eagles from the 1904 station, once presumed lost.

I found the red framing annoying trying to get good shots of the pillars without the red steel intruding, but I guess bright red does alert travel-trance eyes to the art.

Subway Art on the GammaBlog

What looks like an unofficial memorial, listing the names of those killed at the World Trade Center, printed labels adhered to the tiles. From the state of discoloration and deterioration of the labels, I suspect that these have been here for several years.

New York has some great subway mosaics. This is not one of them, it is just too cute.and reeks of NYU public relations. N, R, W line at 8th Street and Broadway.

Tiny people populate the Fourteenth Street, Eighth Ave subway station. Tom Otterness is the artist, they are subtly subversive and cute.
More Otterness

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Broadway actress, Billie Burke married Flo Ziegfeld. Burke is best known as Glinda the Good Witch of the North from the Wizard of Oz.
www.musicals101.com/ziegwho.htm
N R W subway station, Broadway and 23rd Street. View Large

The mosaic work in this station remind me of the also excellent work in the Museum of Natural History station.

Lovely mosaic representation of the hat of William Barclay Parsons. ” In 1894, he became chief engineer of the New York Rapid Transit Commission, designing the original plan for the Interborough Rapid Transit subway, which opened in 1904. His thorough examinations of Manhattan’s topography resulted in his use of the less expensive and more efficient cut-and-cover construction method for the first subway lines.”
c250.columbia.edu/c250_celebrates/remarkable_columbians/w… View Large

Forgotten NY on Subway Mosaics

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Empress Voyage – The motifs in the individual ceramic panels are stylized interpretations of Chinese merchandise popular in colonial New York

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Beavers decorate the walls of the Astor Place subway station in the East Village. John Jacob Astor made his fortune in the fur trade.

[AstorPlace]

Glass mosaic by Ming Fay in the Delancey Street Subways Station. “For his five-year project, Fay traveled to Germany to work with the mosaic fabricators on glass selection and color choice…On the Brooklyn-bound platform, shad fish, which make runs through our rivers every spring, represent the travel of immigrants across the ocean (and our travels across the Williamsburg Bridge).”