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BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY MURALS
They’re really up against the wall!
A series of seven colorful murals
celebrating the power of
books now decorates the children’s
section of Brooklyn’s biggest reading
room. The Brooklyn Public Library
unveiled the images, which
are spread along one wall of the
Youth Wing of its Central Library,
at a celebration in October. Adding
art to the library was a once-in-alifetime
opportunity, said one of the
creators.
“I never would have dreamed that
I could contribute in this way to this
borough that I love so much,” said
Steven Savage, a 25-year Brooklyn
resident and illustrator of the children’s
book . “Polar Night.”
The art project began as a way to
liven up the plain white walls of the
library’s Youth Wing with framed
prints, but soon snowballed into a
mural project involving seven acclaimed
children’s book illustrators
with ties to the library system.
The artists worked together to
create a unifying theme for the
seven murals, said the Brooklyn illustrator
who also art-directed the
project.
“What we came up with was, ‘What
happens to a book when it leaves the
library?’” said Sophie Blackall, artist
of the “Ivy and Bean” series and a twotime
ONE BROOKLYN | W 18 INTER 2019–2020
winner of the Caldecott Medal.
“The book goes out into the community,
and it gets read in treetops, and
on the subway — and ‘Where does the
book take you?’ — to imaginary places
and to dreamscapes.”
The murals start with Savage’s
image of a fl ying saucer hovering
over the Central Branch, lifting a
red book with a tractor beam. Other
murals show the book traveling
around the world, street scenes of
Brooklyn, imaginary creatures, and
fi nally, children reading while fl oating
above the earth.
Repeating motifs across the murals
include that spaceship, a mother
pushing a stroller, butterfl ies, and the
golden creatures that adorn the front
gates of the Central Branch Library.
Working with the library was a
personal project, said Blackall, an
Australian native.
“I would do almost anything —
almost —for the library,” she said.
“The library and I go back a long
way. About 20 years ago I moved to
this country, not knowing a soul, in
the dead of winter, and my infant son
learned to walk in the youth wing.
The library opened its doors to us. It
was warm, it was free, and we read
our way through the stacks, and
along the way, I took notes on how to
make a picture book.”
Other artists were Christopher
Myers, Javaka Steptoe, Paul Zelinsky,
Selina Alko, and Yuyi Morales.
Central Library Youth Wing 10
Grand Army Plaza at Eastern Parkway
in Prospect Heights, (718) 230–
2100, www.bklynlibrary.org. Open
Mon–Thu, 9 am–9 pm; Fri, Sat, 9
am–6 pm; Sun, 1–5 pm. Free.
CRIMSON SUBWAY CARS
Take a trip through time!
The iconic crimson subway cars
that once dominated the subway
system fi rst launched 60 years ago,
and the New York City Transit Museum
in Downtown Brooklyn is celebrating
the anniversary with a new
exhibit. “Reign of the Redbirds” takes
visitors on a trip through the almost
half-century during which the beloved
red-painted subway cars were synonymous
with New York City, according to
the museum’s curator.
“People have a very strong affection
for the Redbirds,” said Jodi Shapiro.
“To have something like this in
your life for 40 or so years, they are
like an old friend.”
“Redbird” is the nickname given
to nine different models of subway
car that were easily identifi ed by their
bright red paint. The boxy trains were
fi rst introduced in 1959, shortly after
New York City’s three rail companies
unifi ed under the New York City Transit
Authority.
The fl eet of 2,000 cars thundered
along the subway tunnels during prosperous
years and times of fi scal crisis,
until they were decommissioned in
2003. Shapiro likened the trains to a
longtime resident of the Big Apple.
“They have kind of seen it all,” Shapiro
said. “They are sort of a surrogate
for a person who has lived in New York
all that time.”
One surprising fact about the Redbirds:
They were not always red! When
the fl eet launched, the trains were
painted blue, and they were — unsurprisingly
— known as Bluebirds. The
blue subway cars ferried riders to Flushing
Meadows-Corona Park for the 1964
World’s Fair in Queens, and became
well known because of that event.
“There are a lot of photos in this
show about people using the Bluebirds
to get to the World’s Fair and showing
how they became a big part of the culture
back then,” Shapiro said. “All the
wayfi ndings said ‘Follow the blue arrow
to the World’s Fair,’ so it made it
easy for people who had never been to
Queens before to fi nd their way.”
In 1984, the entire fl eet was painted
red, and the Redbird name was retroactively
applied to the train models.
Redbirds were eventually phased out
in the late ’90s by the New Technology
Trains, the fi rst to feature prerecorded
voices announcing subway
stops. Redbirds were fi nally retired
from the rails in 2003, but they have
not entirely vanished, according to
Shapiro. Several are preserved at museums,
while others were hauled into
the ocean and scattered along the Eastern
seaboard, to serve as makeshift
coral reefs.
“Fish really dig the Redbird reefs,”
Shapiro said. “Other types of subway
cars that were reefed did not last as
long as the Redbirds.”
The exhibit features photographs of
the trains throughout the decades – including
the graffi ti-covered 1970s, the
refurbishment of the 1980s, and their
new home under the sea. The museum
also has several preserved Redbirds
that visitors can step aboard while
learning about the cars’ lengthy history.
“So many people love the Redbirds,
but some people may not know how
long they were around, what they were
before they became Redbirds, or what
happened to them after their useful
service life,” Shapiro said. “It’s a good
story about the resiliency of our subway
system.”
“The Reign of the Redbirds” at
New York Transit Museum in Downtown
Brooklyn 99 Schermerhorn St. at
Boerum Place Downtown, www.nytransitmuseum.
org, (718) 694–1600. Open
Tue–Fri, 10 am–4 pm; Sat–Sun, 11 am–5
pm through Sept. 13, 2020. $10.
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