My friend Justin has been drawing insanely cool fictional portraits on the subway since he moved here a few years ago. Recently, he’s been working on a set called the Urban Tribal Series, which is strange, disturbing, and compelling. It’s sort of based on the concept of Japanese salarymen, but the suited men of Justin’s drawings have creepy biomorphic cellphone headsets, helmets, or otherwise freaky appendages.
Anyway, he was asked to participate in a project through CalArts in which 365 artists all take one day of the year and create a piece of art—all the while documenting the process. Justin asked me to document his trip through the subway system on Saturday while he created one of his drawings.
In the photo above, we’re starting in the morning near his home in Astoria.
We spent the whole day on a variety of NYC transit options—subway, ferry, Staten Island Railway. Our itinerary:
- Astoria to Coney on the N Train
- Coney to The Bronx (last stop; Norwood) on the D Train
- D Train, Norwood to 161st/Yankee Stadium
- 4 Train from 161/Yankee Stadium to Manhattan Bowling Green
- Staten Island Ferry to St. George Ferry Terminal
- Staten Island Railway to end of the line at Tottenville
- SIR back to ferry
- Ferry to R Train
- R Train back to Park Slope
This kid had a pretty cool retro ’80s style.
Tottenville, at the very southern tip of Staten Island, is like going to another city altogether.