Painting the Town -- Museum of the City of New York

Subdivision of the farms and villages of the Bronx as far north as Van Cortlandt Park transformed that borough into an appealing, affordable, and convenient place to live. The northward expansion of New York's metropolitan transit system, here represented by the Broadway -Seventh Avenue subway, a branch of the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT), opened the way for much of this development during the first quarter of the twentieth century. When extended in 1905, the line covered a route running from Van Cortlandt Park at 242nd Street in the Bronx, through Harlem, the Upper West Side, and Greenwich Village, to South Ferry at Manhattan's southern tip. Two northern branches end at 148th Street in Manhattan and Wakefield in the East Bronx, while certain southbound trains veer off to Flatbush and New Lots Avenues in Brooklyn, making the subway line New York's longest. The mélange of passengers featured in this vignette signifies the varied neighborhoods served by the train's route.

In the 1930s the city's three subway systems carried a daily passenger load of 5.5 million, most of whom composed a rush-hour crowd of "commuters just arrived from the suburbs over New York Central and New Haven trains . . . and . . . others from the city," largely en route to or from work. A complex of underground shops and facilities -phone booths, lunch counters, hotels, shoeshine stands -connected by the subway lines had created a subterranean second city, and a New Yorker could "live a rather rounded life without once venturing into the street." During the Great Depression, homeless people slept in the subway and used it as a shelter during the coldest days, beginning a sad but long-standing tradition that continues today.¹

For most city residents, the subway represented a convenient, inexpensive means of traveling about town without becoming paralyzed in traffic jams endemic to the streets. Many New York City artists set out to examine the uniquely urban experience of traveling in close proximity to strangers beneath the streets. James Kerr here portrays a typical cross section of riders, reflecting disparities of age, occupation, class, and ethnicity. The fur collar and cuffs and well-fitted gloves worn by the woman seated third from the right contrast sharply with the battered felt hat of the tieless African American man two seats to her left. The small girl with dangling feet holds fast to the woman at her side. Except for the men absorbed in their newspapers and the bespectacled woman who has just glanced up from her book, Kerr's characters stare vacantly ahead, adhering to the urban etiquette of eluding eye contact with fellow passengers and retreating into private thoughts in order to block out the drab, noisy subway system.

Notes:

1 The WPA Guide to New York City (1939; reprint, New York: Pantheon, 1982), pp. 401 -402.


7th Avenue Subway 1931 James W. Kerr (1897 -1994) Signed lower left: James W. Kerr / NYC 1931 Oil on canvas, 26 X 40 Gift of the artist, 77.16.4
Subdivision of the farms and villages of the Bronx as far north as Van Cortlandt Park transformed that borough into an appealing, affordable, and convenient place to live. The northward expansion of New York's metropolitan transit system, here represented by the Broadway -Seventh Avenue subway, a branch of the Interborough Rapid Transit (IRT), opened the way for much of this development during the first quarter of the twentieth century. When extended in 1905, the line covered a route running from Van Cortlandt Park at 242nd Street in the Bronx, through Harlem, the Upper West Side, and Greenwich Village, to South Ferry at Manhattan's southern tip. Two northern branches end at 148th Street in Manhattan and Wakefield in the East Bronx, while certain southbound trains veer off to Flatbush and New Lots Avenues in Brooklyn, making the subway line New York's longest. The mélange of passengers featured in this vignette signifies the varied neighborhoods served by the train's route. In the 1930s the city's three subway systems carried a daily passenger load of 5.5 million, most of whom composed a rush-hour crowd of "commuters just arrived from the suburbs over New York Central and New Haven trains . . . and . . . others from the city," largely en route to or from work. A complex of underground shops and facilities -phone booths, lunch counters, hotels, shoeshine stands -connected by the subway lines had created a subterranean second city, and a New Yorker could "live a rather rounded life without once venturing into the street." During the Great Depression, homeless people slept in the subway and used it as a shelter during the coldest days, beginning a sad but long-standing tradition that continues today.¹ For most city residents, the subway represented a convenient, inexpensive means of traveling about town without becoming paralyzed in traffic jams endemic to the streets. Many New York City artists set out to examine the uniquely urban experience of traveling in close proximity to strangers beneath the streets. James Kerr here portrays a typical cross section of riders, reflecting disparities of age, occupation, class, and ethnicity. The fur collar and cuffs and well-fitted gloves worn by the woman seated third from the right contrast sharply with the battered felt hat of the tieless African American man two seats to her left. The small girl with dangling feet holds fast to the woman at her side. Except for the men absorbed in their newspapers and the bespectacled woman who has just glanced up from her book, Kerr's characters stare vacantly ahead, adhering to the urban etiquette of eluding eye contact with fellow passengers and retreating into private thoughts in order to block out the drab, noisy subway system. Notes: 1 The WPA Guide to New York City (1939; reprint, New York: Pantheon, 1982), pp. 401 -402.