Subway Map Floating on a NY Sidewalk

The building at 110 Greene Street was the headquarters of the late Tony Goldman, and the art starts before you even get inside. The lobby holds works by Henry Chalfant and Swoon, and every floor bears the marks of the tenants who occupied it — but Goldman planted the first piece on the street itself, back in 1985.

The sidewalk out front traces the familiar lines of the New York City subway system, rendered in brass and embedded LED lights. Subway Map Floating on a NY Sidewalk, by Françoise Schein, spans over ninety feet long and twelve feet wide. The entire block was dug up during installation. Each LED light is set into the ceilings of the adjacent buildings’ basements and glows upward through the pavement at night. Schein conceived the piece as a meditation on the relationship between human rights and underground transit infrastructure — an abstract proposition, but the object itself speaks plainly enough.

In 1985, when SoHo was still rough and the lofts were cheap artist studios, the piece must have been a jolt — precision and civic idealism laid into a crumbling sidewalk in a neighborhood still finding its footing.

Location: 110 Greene Street, SoHo, New York