An ad campaign for the upcoming Prometheus movie has taken over a ghost station in the Paris Metro. (Via FirstShowing.net)

I grew up at 91st and Broadway, and for the city’s subway buffs, that intersection holds a special place in our hearts for it is the location of the one of the city’s abandoned subway stops. Once a local stop along the West Side IRT, the TA shuttered this station in 1959 when the southbound extension of 96th St. left 91st St. as an unnecessary relic of another age. While the Transit Museum once offered tours of the station, these days it is a dimly lit gallery for graffiti artists and history buffs who know where to look as the 1 travels between 86th and 96th Streets.

This station at 91st St. is hardly New York’s only abandoned platform still visible to the general public. Along the East Side, Worth St. and 18th St., both of which met a similar fate as 91st St., remain in place, covered by decades of neglect. The City Hall loop is visible for those who ride around the loop on the 6, and the Hoyt-Schermerhorn platforms are on full display for another waiting for an A, C or G train. Joe Brennan’s site has everything you’ve ever wanted to know about these abandoned stations and more.

The MTA has, now and then, debated what to do with these stations. Due to safety and liability concerns, they remain off limits to the general public, and a plan to turn City Hall into a Transit Museum annex were quashed by Mayor Giuliani over security concerns. Instead of anything, they are nothing but barely remembered parts of subway history. They could however find a second life with some creativity.

The ad campaign has taken out space on the Line 9 route maps in Paris.

New York’s isn’t the only subway system with abandoned stations. In Paris, in particular, the twists and turns of their tunnels are laden with ghost stations, and now in the City of Light, they’re putting these stations to use with a twist Madison Ave. would appreciate. Ridley Scott’s Prometheus is set to take the movie world by storm. A quasi-prequel to the Alien series, the film has a mythology all its own, and the viral marketing campaigns have been widespread and effective. As numerous movie sites reported this week, a new campaign has opened in the Saint-Martin station. Closed since just after World War II, this station now features giant heads and lighting straight out of the movie.

Fox has issued a press release promoting the use of this station as a blank slate for its advertising efforts. They discuss using the subterranean station to recreate movie sets. The curvature of the ceiling and the dim lighting are ideal for such a usage, and Paris Metro riders seem to love it. The studio has also paid Metro to slap the movie’s logos on strip maps in the Line 9 subway cars.

So let’s see it, New York. Our abandoned stations, not in the greatest of shape right now, could be great springboards for innovating in-tunnel advertising. Generally, the stations are located close enough to nearby stations that trains don’t go zooming past them. It’s always possible to spy 91st St. at a reasonable speed, for instance, and something creative in that space would certainly draw headlines and eyeballs.

On Thursday, I rode a shuttle fully wrapped in advertising for something in Switzerland. Even though I rode the same train twice in the span of an hour, I couldn’t tell you what I saw. But these Prometheus heads would stick with me. It’s a memorable use of an intriguing spot and a revenue opportunity worth pursuing.

After the jump, a viral video of the viral marketing in the Paris Metro. Read More→

Big Brother-style video ads line the concourse at Columbus Circle. (Photo courtesy of New York City Transit)

For the past few years, the MTA has engaged in a comprehensive overhaul of the 59th St.-Columbus Circle station. The renovation was originally supposed to wrap in 2009, but like many a TA project, it didn’t finish on time. Instead, work continued until one day, it stopped. There was no grand ribbon-cutting and nothing to announce substantial completion of the project.

Lately, though, the MTA has been putting some of the station on display. Sol Lewitt’s work adorns the station, and straphangers can once again use the middle platform on the IND platform. Still, it seems as though something is missing. Early renderings of the project, for example, called for a retail corridor in the vast hallway before fare control that stretches north from 57th St. underneath Eighth Avenue. As of yet, no one has taken out space.

This week, the authority unveiled a comprehensive, if temporary, use of the hallway: It is a 60-foot digital video ads. A release from the MTA explains:

This week, Asics unveiled a stunning new advertising campaign featuring high-definition digital video at Columbus Circle, which serves the A/B/C/D and No.1 lines. Although the video is 60 feet wide and spans the length of 26 glass panels, it appears seamless—as if it’s being projected across one incredibly wide screen.

The campaign is a win-win for the MTA and Asics. For the MTA, the campaign represents yet another way we’re thinking creatively to find new revenue streams that help fund our transit system. For Asics, the massive, coordinated “screen” vastly expands the possibilities of traditional advertising. For instance, at one point the ad asks, “Think you can keep pace with an elite marathoner? Ryan Hall is approaching in …” Numbers then countdown from ten to one, at which point an image of marathoner Ryan Hall runs across the glass, in real speed.

As the MTA proclaims, customers can even try to outrace Ryan Hall. It is “the first time digital video has been done on glass panels and the first time digital video in our system has been done on this scale,” the authority noted. As Times reporter Michael Grynbaum observed on Twitter, it’s all very “Blade Runner-y.”

Yesterday, I rode a shuttle train decked out top to bottom, inside and out, in advertising for Dell computers. Today, video ads follow us through 59th Street as exit the system. As the MTA struggles to make every dollar count, advertising is truly everywhere. The revenue, as Squire Vickers once said, is a balm for hurt minds.

The video boards stretch throughout the Columbus Circle station. (Photo courtesy of NYC Transit)

A vintage IRT trainset will be decked out in Boardwalk Empire ads this month.

Railfans and regular straphangers love vintage train car rides, but the MTA has found them to be a bit costly. During times of austerity, the authority hasn’t been as willing to let loose the old trainsets as they once were, but it seems as though they’ve solved this problem through advertising. For the month of September, a Boardwalk Empire-branded vintage trainset will run on the West Side IRT on the weekends as HBO gears up to promote the new series.

Here’s what the pitch e-mail has to say:

Starting on Saturday, September 3rd an authentic vintage 1920’s train will run on the express 2/3 track in Manhattan throughout September (specifically, from 12 to 6 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays). Originally operated by the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT) system, the train began service back in 1917 and will once again be operational. Customers who have the opportunity to ride the vintage train will be transported back in time to the Prohibition era with authentic details such as rattan seats, ceiling fans and drop sash windows, as well as a custom branded interior featuring Boardwalk Empire-inspired period artwork.

For the weekend of the premier — September 24 and 25 — so-called “brand ambassadors” will be giving away free MetroCards as well. HBO is apparently going all out, and as you can see from the image above, the faux-vintage ads in the Nostalgia Train cars have given way to Boardwalk Empire branding.

This is of course a rather unique promotion since there aren’t too many period pieces on TV that take place in New York, but I’m curious about the economics of it. I’ve reached out to the MTA for more information, and if I hear a pricetag, I’ll pass it along. In the meantime, click through for another look at the sponsored subway car. I wonder if it’ll be an air conditioned ride. Read More→

Photo by Benjamin Kabak

When: June 15, 2011
Where: The staircase leading up from the Shuttle platform to the entryway to Grand Central Terminal at 42nd St.

I found myself last week walking past the Shuttle platform after entering the subway on 42nd St. and Madison Ave. As I neared the walkway to the IRT complex, I spied these in-staircase advertisements on the steps leading up from the Shuttle platform. As an orange juice connoisseur, I thoroughly enjoyed the subject matter, but what struck me even more so was the presentation of the advertising. I believe this is the first time the MTA has placed a billboard ad inside a staircase.

The ad, on display just a few yards from a train wrapped in a promotional campaign for Lady Gaga’s latest album, works best from a distance. As harried straphangers approach the staircases, the ad comes into view, and Simply Orange is on display for everyone to see. This presentation too is appropriate only for stations that have expansive views and staircases. It wouldn’t work at, say, the 79th St. entrance along the 1 train because those exiting the station never see the staircase from a distance.

As we know, the MTA is trying to eke as many advertising dollars as possible out of the subway system, and the 42nd St. corridor is the ideal location for it. Grand Central is the system’s second busiest subway station, and commuters bound for Midtown office buildings filter through the Shuttle station. This isn’t the first advertisement to adorn the staircase, and we’ll have to see where else these types of ads end up. For now, I’m a fan of the presentation even as advertising becomes more pervasive throughout the system.

Photo by Benjamin Kabak

For the past few years, the MTA has decorated its turnstile arms at Herald Square with a variety of advertisements. Other transit agencies across the country had eked out some dollars selling sponsorships on their entry gates, and the authority had hoped to do the same in New York. The early ads never really spread beyond the busy 34th St. station though.

Over the last few days, however, I’ve seen the ads creep southward. Last week, when I arrived at West 4th St., I noticed blue wraps on the southern turnstiles. The ads — supporting New York’s anti-smoking campaign — are on the three turnstile arms on each of the entry gates at the West 3rd St. entrance to the station, and it’s a part of the MTA’s attempts to squeeze dry its advertising potential.

I posted the photo to my Twitter account earlier today, and one reader questioned the wisdom of these ads. Should the MTA be hosting advertisements that will make straphangers slow down to reach the ad info or jot down a phone number as they swipe through at a busy and hectic station? I’ll leave that one up to you, dear reader, to decide.

For the next eight weeks, East Side riders can catch the Swatch-wrapped 6 train. (Photo courtesy of New York City Transit)

Take a look at this 6 train. It’s the latest and greatest from the MTA’s advertising department. For the next eight weeks, as part of the authority’s attempts to draw in more advertising revenue, this 6 train will be fully wrapped in Swatch ads. On the heels of last year’s Target campaign, this is the second such fully-wrapped train.

“The MTA earns more than $100 million per year from sales of advertising space, mostly through traditional print media, but we continue to map out new ways to maximize the value of our physical assets,” MTA Chairman Jay Walder said in a statement. “One way we are doing that is by creating more dynamic advertising opportunities.”

To draw in more money, the MTA is also looking into 3D images and in-tunnel advertising. All of this advertising is a balm for hurt minds indeed.

Poetry has been noticeably absent from the subway of late.

For nearly two decades, placards of poetry greeted observant straphangers in various subway cars across New York City. While these bright spots of art and literature amidst the drabness of subway advertising proved popular, “Poetry in Motion” met its demise in 2008, and a similar program called “Train of Thought” replaced it. When the MTA rebranded its house ads, “Train of Thought” was axed, and New York’s literati were saddened.

Have hope though because the MTA may be searching for ways to restore poetry to the subway. Michael Grynbaum broke the news yesterday. The authority, he says, “has entered preliminary talks to revive Poetry in Motion.” He writes:

The transportation authority is discussing the matter with the Poetry Society of America, which helped coordinate the original “Poetry in Motion” campaign from its inception in 1992. The series, modeled on a similar program on the London Underground, brought Yeats and Browning into the unusual locale of a gritty subway train, peppering the usual Dr. Zizmor ads with classics of literary verse.

“Walder really loves the poetry; I wouldn’t be surprised to see it come back,” said an official at the transportation authority who is familiar with the plans, referring to the authority’s chairman, Jay H. Walder. The official was not authorized to speak publicly about discussions that were intended to be private.

The Poetry Society is said to be seeking a financial sponsor for the campaign, which would be a prerequisite. Officers at the society declined to comment.

If the poetry makes the subways seem friendlier, I’m all for it. Spotting a verse or two in the trains always brought a smile to my face. Even if the verses aren’t quite as out there as some, the return of “Poetry in Motion” would be welcome indeed.