This time, on the 116th Street downtown subway
platform, I noticed a quirky sculpture. Believe me, this was the last thing I
would have expected to see when Columbia was still trying to recover its
equilibrium a decade after the 1968 student takeover of the university—or, even
more recently (and disastrously), when city services were still reeling from
New York’s narrow escape from bankruptcy in the fall of 1975.
In other words, it was a gray, dingy atmosphere, where
the idea of people smiling over public art was more a matter of satire than
satisfaction.
So you can imagine my surprise when I saw this artwork
in steel on the platform, depicting an oversized chair. "I wanted to
create a whimsical environment that allows the commuter to feel special as
opposed to alienated," observed sculptor Michelle Greene.
In my case, mission accomplished, as I took out my
iPhone to photograph this piece of public art.
But that wasn’t the end of my surprise. I found out
from the Website for the Metropolitan Transit Authority that Railrider's
Throne was created in 1991. I had passed through this station a number
of time in the three decades since then, but somehow hadn’t noticed it till
now.
Go figure. I can’t.
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