Colorful stations from the past

In the mid-1970s, as a sort of a precursor to the current MTA Arts for Transit program, the city’s Public Arts Council along with the Municipal Arts Society and the Arts and Business Council asked a number of New York City-based designers to beautify four subway stations in colorful ways. At the Natural History Museum stop, make-believe prehistoric beasts were hung up on the walls. The Borough Hall stop along Brooklyn’s IRT lines featured a series of neon lights. A third, at the IND stop at 53rd and 5th Ave., featured bright stripes and freshly painted turnstiles.

Earlier this week, the design blog So Much Pileup dug up some great color photos of the IND station. A 1976 Times article about the program says Exxon funded the designs with four $5000 grants, and as a sign of the times, one of the stations’ displays was vandalized as workers were installing them.