One day graphic designer Adam Chang fell in love with the New York City subway. Well, to be more specific, he fell in love with the inventive, often eye-catching tile mosaics that grace each station. He loves them so much he built an entire website that lets you tour every last sign of every last station in Manhattan.
Behold: The New York Train Project. For now, Chang's only done Manhattan, but he's made his point. Isolated from the decades of grime that typically smear the tiles, these graphic mosaics offer an almost undeniably iconic identity for each station. Chang also includes a fact about each station. New Yorkers will immediately recognize the more intricate tile work of places like Grand Central or Bleecker Street which actually served as Chang's inspiration.
"One day I was waiting for the 6 train and noticed the Bleecker sign and how intricate the details were," he explains on the website. "After that, I began to pay more attention to each sign and saw how they were all different in their own way." It's especially impressive when you realize that Chang is traveling to every single subway station to capture the design of the signs. So far, he's traveled for 20 hours and 118 subway stations. Remarkably, it's only taken him 9 MetroCard swipes.
We've picked out a few of our favorites and posted them below. To see all of Manhattan, though, click through to the New York Train Project. To see the rest of the city, stay tuned!