Fulton Street station, Rookwood Pottery, 1905.
"After the Rapid Transit Act was signed into law on 22 May 1894, the Rapid Transit Railroad’s Board of Commissioners began planning a Bronx-Manhattan-Brooklyn subway. Groundbreaking occurred on 24 Mar 1900 and after four years of construction at a cost of nearly 70 million USD the Interborough Rapid Transit Subway – 'the greatest municipal enterprise of modern times' – was opened on 27 Oct 1904. In 1901 the general contractor John McDonald hired the architects George C. Heins and Christopher Grant LaFarge, who had just completed work for the Bronx Zoo, to design the stations and platforms. Inspired by the 'City Beautiful' theories of urban planning, which had reached their peak following the 1893 Columbian Exposition, Heins and LeFarge designed beaux-arts stations and decorated the platforms with arts-and-crafts style glazed terracotta bas-reliefs and faience mosaics depicting, often obliquely, the name of the station. Although in line with the artistic tastes of the times the result wasn’t exactly an efficient system of way-finding. ..."
Codex 99
Astor Place station, Grueby Faience, 1904
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