Connect to outside sources (article/book/podcast/ted talk/blog/website/etc)

• • This is a Text investigation. Consider your essential question in the context of at least two outside sources you have identified that connect to your essential question. How do these ideas resonate with or challenge your own beliefs, experiences, or practices? Be sure to give concrete and specific examples. You may want to address: ways the sources answered parts of your Essential Question, what additional questions were raised, or how your essential understanding of your project was altered or confirmed by the readings you did. Make sure to cite your sources.

This week I visited The Floating Subway Map in Soho. After I visited, I dove into more research about the creation of the subway map and the system itself. I read an interactive NYT Article about the creation of the subway map that I fell in love with. Fun facts: the creator of the subway map rode the length of every subway line with his eyes closed and drew in his sketchbook how he felt his body moving with lines. Susan Shaw, a designer, brought up a good point that they should depict everything else above ground as is to help people navigate accordingly (i.e: Central Park). Staten Island is the only borough to be excluded from the subway map/system, with the exception that the Staten Island Railway is included on the subway system map. I have ridden the subway millions of times in my life and I never thought about riding it with my eyes closed, mostly for safety reasons; however, knowing that’s how the subway map was created, now I want to.

This connects to my essential questions because I think I have taken for granted, and so have many New Yorkers, the subway system. We forget that the subway was created by other humans. We just see it has a way to get from point A to point B, which I hope to change by educating people on the history through my project. Also, a lot of my other visits have included subway art installations that seem minuscule but have a deep meaning behind them.

It is also crazy how fast and how much the subway has changed and is changing. They have introduced what the new railcar trains are going to look like. They have made it possible to pay the fee WITHOUT A METROCARD!

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/12/02/nyregion/nyc-subway-map.html

https://www.thecity.nyc/2020/11/29/21559787/mta-new-subway-cars-running-late-nyc