The Ornamentation of the New Subway Stations 
A CORNER AT THE COLUMBUS CIRCLE STATION 
one of the best of all the cornice motives, 
and it is to be regretted that its special appli¬ 
cation to the Thirty-third Street Station is 
destroyed by its mysterious appearance also 
at Fourteenth Street. With the exception 
of the faience cornice, which is a rich terra¬ 
cotta color, the remainder of the walls at 
Thirty-third Street are rather neutral in tone, 
the individual colors of the mosaic being 
delicate, as they are elsewhere. 
The attractive Columbus Circle Station is 
the result of considerable experimentation, 
for this point on the road was the first 
made ready for the decorations, and The 
Grueby Company early set to work to learn 
the color effects of their product in such an 
untried situation. Here we find the galleys 
of Columbus done in faience with tour colors 
denoting, in an elementary but effective way, 
the sky (dark blue), the sea (light green), the 
ship (brown) and its sails (cream). Any one 
of these, caught by a glance from a car win¬ 
dow, will tell the passenger his location under 
the city ; while the Circle is represented in 
the name-panels of the station; and lastly, 
the letters themselves inside the panel will 
with the effect of making the white characters within, on 
their ground ot chocolate color, less conspicuous than 
they should be. The delicate, almost dainty, pilasters 
which divide the panels are also of mosaic. 
At Thirty-third Street the Subway engineers took ad¬ 
vantage of the walls of the tunnel under Fark Avenue, to 
obtain light for their station by means ot vertical win¬ 
dows, which greatly aid the effect of the decorations. 
Close by is the 71st Regiment Armory, and the station or¬ 
nament associates with the idea of national defense. At 
intervals along a faience cornice just below the ceiling are 
large and effective Grueby panels, bearing in relief an 
American eagle who holds a shield before him. The 
large figures on 
the shield, deno¬ 
ting the station, 
stand out from a 
green ground in 
bold relief,and are 
surrounded by a 
blue border con¬ 
tain i n g white 
stars. On account 
of the vigor and 
large scale of this 
ornament, it is 
A GALLEY OF COLUMBUS 
One of the Grueby Medallions at '■‘■The Circle' 
A FAIENCE NAME-PANEL AT THE CIRCLE 
290 
