New York’s subway, from its founding, was dreamt as a public good in all senses, to provide a useful and reliable service that was also a pleasant place to be. City train stations were filled with decorative ornamentation, public art and monuments, and other luxurious touches. The act of putting art in train cars was formalized in 1985, when the MTA’s Arts & Design program was launched, initially to incorporate original pieces of art in large, capital projects. The department has since evolved to include public art initiatives on trains, buses, and platforms—nearly every surface the MTA controls.

Anyone who has taken the subway has likely come across Arts & Design’s most popular program, Poetry in Motion , which pairs poems with artwork. For me, each poem is a respite from the crowd, the commute, the bleating of advertisements. Recently I have been reflecting on how central this program was to my conception of my city. Who’s behind this poetry?…