The New York City Metropolitan Transportation Authority know what’s up.
In what is to be one of the most ambitious projects that the MTA has ever undertaken, the entirety of a recently refurbished subway station will be found adorned with commissioned art pieces when it reopens in the New Year, including a variety of mosaics, faience and amethyst-glass skylights harkening back to the city’s first subway stations.
Meanwhile, in Australia, the morons at Transport NSW are doing this shit:
The New York City Transport Authority have commissioned pieces from artists to fill a new subway station. Meanwhile, in Sydney…
It’s a stark contrast. On one hand you have an ambitious, culturally progressive city who are putting art and aesthetic at the fore of civil infrastructure; and on the other hand you have a government who is openly strangling its nightlife, and whose idea of a night out at “some of the city’s coolest spots” is this:
The governor of New York, Andrew M. Cuomo, who is said to have had a personal hand in the Second Ave subway project, has likened it in historical terms, as a call for government to strive to build inspiring public amenities and infrastructure.
“At some point government adopted an attitude that its job was to build things that were functional but unattractive and unappealing,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement to The New York Times.
“But that’s not how it has always been, and it’s not how it should be. With every public works project, I believe there is an opportunity to elevate the everyday, to build a public space where community can gather and where culture and shared civic values are celebrated.”
Holy shit – did that quote make you die inside a little bit, Sydney? Because according to our government, “culture and shared civic values” means going to the movies, a VR arcade, playing Dance Dance Revolution and going to a virtually deserted night market – fuckin’ bang on.
Of course, it’s not all that surprising. These are the people that came up with the Stoner Sloth campaign to warn youths off smoking weed and who have vehemently destroyed a once dynamic nighttime economy in Sydney. But still it’s extremely depressing when you see this:
In constrast to this:
I’ve never been more embarrased to live in Sydney.
