As their last stop nears, NYC's orange subway seats get artsy sendoff

BROOKLYN -- The New York City subway will never look the same.

Brightly colored seats became ubiquitous on certain train lines starting in the 1970s. Now, cars containing them are being replaced with new models. New York Transit Museum curator Jodi Shapiro says straphangers are showing a lot of love for the orange seats, so the museum is paying tribute with the exhibit Ode to the Orange Seats.

Trains with those iconic orange seats first hit the tracks in 1971, in R44 cars. The color scheme "was a really big departure," Shapiro said. "The new cars that were coming into the system were very informed by 1970s and late '60s aesthetics, and these colors were the 'it' colors of the late 1960s, early 1970s. Previously to that, it was mostly cool colors like green and blue."

Shapiro says the exhibit was an easy sell to artists. She was pleasantly surprised by "the enthusiasm when we reached out to people and said, 'Hey, we saw you did some work related to the orange seats,' and to a person, they were very excited. As a curator, that's something you dream about."

She thinks the seats are a natural inspiration for artists because they tend to spend a lot of time riding the subway.

Take miniature artist Danny Cortes. His recreation of the corner of a subway car focuses on the little details: "I'm just trying to freeze a moment in time when I used to ride to Coney Island. Just giving a little bit of nostalgia to the people." The piece is distinctively gritty and features a period-accurate subway map and ad.

Painter Michelle Matthews appreciates how the seats reflect light. Her piece, "Forgotten Love" features, "the colors and reflections you get on the seats. Because so many of these trains go aboveground and belowground; so you get the natural light, the lights inside the train, casting these reflections. And then you have the shadows of the people who are on the train."

Visitor Brian Su is taking in the splashy seating while he can. He opines, "These orange seats - you can't get them anywhere else. And it's ingrained into New York's memories. It's hard to forget and it's kind of sad that it's leaving now."

Shapiro says Ode to The Orange Seats visitors get a full-circle experience and "see the artists and the art that have been inspired by them. And then maybe on their way home, if they get on at Borough Hall, they'll catch one of the trains that have the orange seats."