9. Diana al-Hadid’s The Arches of Old Penn Station and The Arc of Gradiva
The redesigned entrance of the 34th Street-Penn Station subway station opened in late 2019 with little fanfare. The creation of the work The Arches of Old Penn Station by Diana al-Hadid accompanied the redesign. The work, featuring blues, teals, pearls, and golden browns, alludes to a resurrected glass atrium in the lost Pennsylvania Station. This atrium was darkened with soot and painted over during World War II and was an example of what many cited as the building’s irreversible decline. The pearly white mosaic tiles recreate the steel and glass structure, and the work fades into all-white tiles on both sides.
Nearby, al-Hadid’s The Arc of Gradiva takes its namesake subject from a 20th-century novel by German author Wilhelm Jensen, which is itself a reference to a Roman bas-relief. Gradiva, who is a mythological character who wanders the ruins of Pompeii, is used to suggest a “ghostly apparition” from the past following the footsteps of people who traverse the station. The pieces were commissioned by MTA Arts & Design, and al-Hadid previously had an exhibition inside Madison Square Park called Delirious Matter.