The Sign and Decoration at Spring Street 
THE ORNAMENTATION OF THE 
NEW SUBWAY STATIONS 
IN NEW YORK 
T HAI the New York Subway has been 
constructed with an eye to satisfactory 
appearances, in addition to utilitarian ends, 
is a fact which will be discovered when that 
vast world underground is opened to the 
public sometime in March or April. The 
approaching completion of the work is now 
marked by the stairways, which are being 
carried to the surface, recalling to the minds 
of travelers the street features of foreign 
cities. But the New York Subway is unlike 
the London “ Twopenny Tube ” and the 
Paris Metropolitan; and these may be likened 
to the cash conveyors in a department store as 
compared with the four-track “trunk line” 
which Manhattan now secretes under her 
surface. The long lines of heavy track 
which now disappear in solitary perspective 
will soon become the daily avenue of thou¬ 
sands of passengers, and will assume an im¬ 
portance in the life of the city, unequaled 
by any other feature of its topography. 
Then it will be found that the Subway does 
not consist merely of so many miles of 
walled sides, formed by vertical arches 
between steel beams, nor of interminable 
files of light supporting columns, two 
feet apart between the tracks, but at points 
which the shallow blocks of the city render 
convenient intervals are the stations, light, 
spacious and airy. How to give each of 
these stations a distinguishing and individ¬ 
ual character was a question which arose as 
soon as their location was fixed ; and how 
the rider in a Subway express may know 
under what portion of the city he is speed¬ 
ing is the matter which concerns us here. 
It is a mistake to assume that in traversing 
THE “CITY HALL LOOP” STATION OF THE SUBWAY 
The Decoration in white, green and brown Guastavino tile ; the Sign panels are of blue and bear white letters 
