MTA Wins Preservation Award

The New York Landmarks Conservancy presented MTA Arts for Transit and MTA New York City Transit with its 2005 Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award, recognizing work at two Brooklyn subway stations — the Atlantic Avenue complex and Brooklyn Museum-Eastern Parkway.

Photo by Rob Wilson, MTA Arts for Transit.

At Atlantic Avenue, the historic subway kiosk in Times Plaza was transformed with the addition of a skylight that allows natural light onto the subway platform. It was also melded with contemporary art in the form of a functional gantry below the skylight.

The redesign team for the kiosk included architect Di Domenico Partners, Parsons Brinkerhoff, preservation-architect Page Cowley Associates, and artist George Trakas.

The MTA was also honored for its work with the Brooklyn Museum at the Brooklyn Museum-Eastern Parkway Station where it preserved — and put on permanent display — more than 75 architectural elements that represent some of the finest New York architectural artifacts ever assembled, making the station a gallery to the Museum.

Contributing to that project’s success were Vel Riberto Consulting, which managed the project for Arts for Transit; Rob Wilson of MTA Arts for Transit; and the Alan M. Farancz Painting Conservation Studio, which preserved the artifacts. The Brooklyn Museum donated the art and contributed to the funding for the station’s stairway, also designed by Polshek Partners.

On both of these projects, the design teams worked closely with the Capital Program Management team at MTA New York City Transit (NYCT), whose dedication to maintaining the city’s transit infrastructure plays a critical role in the ongoing effort to preserve the cultural history of New York City.

Because New York is a dynamic city that is always building and rebuilding, it often seems easier and more economical at times to destroy old sites to make room for new structures. But it comes at a cost — the city runs the risk of losing important pieces of our history.

Photo by Rob Wilson, MTA Arts for Transit.

Throughout its operations, the MTA works to preserve as much of its own and the city’s legacies as possible — not only restoring its facilities, but reaching out to other organizations to provide permanent homes for significant works of art that would otherwise be lost to the public. The Landmarks Conservancy has recognized many of these efforts through its Lucy G. Moses Preservation Award.

MTA Metro-North Railroad received two awards, one for the restoration and preservation of Grand Central Terminal in 1998 and another for the Harlem-125 th Street Station in 1999.

Arts for Transit and NYCT were honored for the preservation of the Marine Grille Murals at the Fulton Street/Broadway-Nassau complex in 2000.

And NYCT was cited in 2001 for the restoration of the Strecker Laboratory Building on Roosevelt Island — a site abandoned for more than 40 years before being restored to its old grandeur for use as a power substation.