NYCTracks salutes the N train. Elevated a portion of its route, the N train takes a three borough tour, shuffling passengers back and forth. A member of NYCTracks documented his commute from 36th Avenue in Astoria to Times Square using a Flip cam. Check it out below:

If your commute takes you through one of the many major transit hubs, you’ve no doubt heard the echoing sounds of a subway musician. NYCTracks went underground to capture the sights and sounds of four subway performers. Click on the map below to check out Sounds of the System.

Click the image to start the slideshow

— Christopher Schuetze

There’s an earnest elephant on 14th Street, a flock of foreboding blackbirds on Canal, and ogling eyes all over Chambers.

They are a few of the mosaics, sculptures and figures that distinguish New York City’s 468 stations.

The MTA’s Arts for Transit program has brought in artists to brighten up the public transit system’s underground hubs since the 1980s. Lower Manhattan is home to some of the most unique pieces in the citywide subway collection. From the whimsical, bronze figurines in the 14th Street station to the stop motion movie in the tunnel to Manhattan, the works bring color to the stations’ tiled walls. Here are a few of the best works from the subterranean collection.

– Simone Sebastian

It might strike you as a surprise, but there’s a fashionable, colorful, aesthetic side to the tracks. Thanks to the fabulous New Yorkers.  Click on the image to view slideshow

— Dana Rapoport

Brooklyn comedian Tom Sibley talks to NYCTracks.com about his popular, but controversial, blog Subway Douchery.

The site exposes riders who violate the subway courtesy code. Sibley’s iPhone has captured people clipping their toenails, dropping food on the train floor, and even lounging shoeless across the train benches.

For many New Yorkers, it has become an outlet for their public transit frustrations. But some take issue with the site, calling it an invasion of subway riders’ privacy.

Ipods, MP3 players, cellphones and other portable music devices allow straphangers to have their own personal soundtrack while riding on the subway. Do you ever wonder what your fellow commuter is listening to? The NYCTracks.com team caught up with a few commuters to see what they were listening to.

-Walter Smith-Randolph

There are very few sights and sounds in the city that will make New Yorkers pause. Very little things that will make us forget about our next destination.

Colin Huggins playing a consul piano underground is one of them.

“I was trying to make people stop. In a big city like New York, in order to do that you need to create some kind of a spectacle,” said Huggins, 32, who started playing two years ago.

“Having a real piano in the subway is one way to do that.”

I stopped even though I was rushing (on a deadline), bundled with tons of equipment, tired and hungry. I have no idea how long I lingered in Union Square that evening, but I know I wasn’t the only one.

Shortly after he started bringing his piano underground, he brought 4-5 tap dancers and a drummer. Now, he gets a lot of attention playing in many different subway stations.

Before he was the “Crazy Piano Guy” playing in the subway, he was accompanying the American Ballet Theater, playing in Avery Fisher Hall and at the Metropolitan Opera in Lincoln Center. Despite the challenges, pushing a 250-pound piano up and down the streets, down the elevator of the subway stations, he much rather perform in the subway over playing in the pit of the huge, monumental venues.

“I don’t like it, people are generally falling asleep. One of the best ways to look at a performance is look at the audience,” he said.

“[In Avery Fisher Hall] I don’t feel the same connection with the audience the way I feel when I’m playing in the subway or in the park. I feel like I have more direct control on how I move people, I look at the people in front of me, I look at the cloths they’re wearing and try to think of what music they want to hear.”

Classically trained, currently the music director of the Joffrey Ballet School, Huggins carries a piano across the streets, parks and subway terminals of New York City. He pushes one of the six pianos he owns and stores in three different storage units across the city in the snow, rain or shine. Actually, when it shines, you are more likely to see pushing his piano to the park.

“When you have that moment when you say, no, I can’t do this, this is too crazy,” he said as he was checking one of the piano’s wheels that recently broke.

“If you’re trying to create something that would really get peoples attention, your first reaction has to be: there’s no way I’m gonna do that.”

A slideshow of a few classical moments in Huggins’ day

And a video of the Union Square craziness

— Dana Rapoport

There’s a lot of action on 42nd street and 6 Ave. No matter what season, day or fashion week it is.
But there’s something happening under Bryant Park as well, and unlike many mainstream exhibition spaces, to be able to see this work, you must move.

“Only by moving you see something happening. Not just shake your head left and right, but actually move about, change perspective to see the animation video,” says artist Eyal Ohana, one of the creators of Bryant Park in Motion.

In a city when everyone is in constant motion, Joshua Spodek, together with Ohana and three more NYU Tich students created the video installation in a busy public space; The 42nd St. Bryant Park subway station.
An LCD screen with 54 frames, compressed one next to the other in a way the viewer can’t really see them.

“Once you move, the light breaks and the images expand so you can actually see the movie,” Ohana tried to break the complicated mechanism down.

Yes, among other things Joshua Spodek is a physicist, and his company Submedia creates animated displays for transit systems. After producing successful ads that flicker through train tunnels and platform from Tokyo to Grand-Central, Spodek wanted to create a non-for profit project for New Yorkers.

Spodek came to the NYU Tisch School of the Arts Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) with the idea and the technology to recruit students that will provide the content.

“You can see simultaneously in one frame what’s happening underground and above the surface in Bryant Park,” said Ohana. “Above there are ice-skating, people, fashion shows, buildings, and an imaginary world underneath, with animals and mold.”

The active viewer

In a way, the young artist is presenting his installation in one of the city’s largest galleries, where thousands of people walk in and out of every day.

“The most interesting thing about this kind of work, is watching people’s reactions. You see people moving in different ways,” Ohana said.

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There have been some reports that MTA is adding another public hearing to the series. The Daily news says it’s scheduled for March 17 and will focus on the elimination of student Metrocards. Students have been among the loudest and most unified voices at the public hearings so far.

MTA Chairman Jay Walder gets personal about the transit agency’s budget woes. The New York Times reports that he’s sleepless and exhausted over the crisis.

Back to business, Walder met with PCAC last week. He said upgrading real-time arrival information (the countdown clocks) is a top priority and promised that he’s taking comments at the public hearings to heart.

Artifacts unearthed during construction of the South Ferry station will be displayed in the a new exhibit at the transit museum. Where New York Began: Archeology at South Ferry opens next week.

Gothamist gets a comment from NYC Transit spokesman Paul Fleuranges on the issue of perpetually busted station escalators.