MTA Declares Opening of Images Exhibit

In Service: MTA Photographs by Christopher Payne Gives Unprecedented Access to MTA Maintenance Shops and Manufacturing Plants Across the Country 

50 Images to be Displayed in All 52 Decommissioned Advertising Lightboxes at Five Major Hubs; First Lightbox Takeover in MTA Arts and Design History 

Project Pays Tribute to Unsung Workers and Highlights Investments Made Possible by Capital Plans; Caps MTA Arts and Design’s Year-Long fortieth Anniversary Celebration 

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) at present introduced the opening of In Service: MTA Photographs by Christopher Payne, a collection of fifty pictures giving riders a uncommon all-access look inside the upkeep outlets and industrial amenities to showcase the those who assist hold subways, buses, commuter railroads, bridges and tunnels working. Payne shot at 13 MTA amenities and manufacturing vegetation in 4 states, with a particular concentrate on capturing the behind-the-scenes infrastructure work and specialised expertise required to construct and keep the machines that transfer New York. 

“Nobody throws a ribbon-cutting to celebrate routine maintenance, but it’s what enables the MTA to move 6.5 million people every day,” mentioned MTA Chair and CEO Janno Lieber. “Christopher Payne went into our workshops and came out with photographs that shine a light on the unsung heroes of your morning commute.” 

“The images reveal the scale, craft, and complexity behind an experience that, for millions of New Yorkers is simply part of the day’s routine,” mentioned MTA Arts and Design Director Tina Vaz. “Yet the effort required to sustain the nation’s largest transit system is anything but routine. It depends on skilled welders, machinists, electricians, inspectors, assemblers, professionals whose expertise ensures that seven million riders can rely on us every day.”  

“With these pictures, I’m hoping that people will appreciate the work that goes into making the system and also the care and how much beauty there is, and how much design is involved in the creation of the subway cars and the buses and the locomotives,” mentioned photographer Christopher Payne. “I also want people to appreciate the people who do the work.”  

Payne photographed each day upkeep work at every of the company’s divisions — New York City Transit, MTA Bus, Long Island Rail Road, Metro-North Railroad, and Bridges & Tunnels, depicting each the individuals and the machines they construct and keep. He additionally travelled throughout the county to doc the development of rolling inventory, made potential by previous and current capital plans, earlier than it reaches the system. This included Kawasaki’s R211 subway automotive meeting websites in Yonkers, New York and Lincoln, Nebraska; New Flyer’s articulated bus manufacturing in St. Cloud, Minnesota, and Jamestown, New York; and Siemens’ locomotive facility in Sacramento, California. 

For practically 4 many years, MTA Arts & Design has transformed decommissioned promoting lightboxes into photograph galleries, with one artist’s work displayed in a single station. The pictures within the In Service collection might be displayed in all 52 lightboxes at 5 main transportation hubs for the following six months – the primary artist lightbox takeover in MTA Arts and Design’s 40-year historical past.  

• 42 St-Bryant Park (     ) —7 lightboxes 

• Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr (         ) — 8 lightboxes 

• Bowling Green (  ) — 7 lightboxes 

• Grand Central Terminal, Dining Concourse — 20 lightboxes 

• Grand Central Madison — 10 lightboxes 

In Service builds on Payne’s long-standing fascination with industrial manufacturing and the hidden infrastructure that powers the MTA system. The mission is impressed by Payne’s MTA Overhaul Shops collection, which was shot on the 207 St and Coney Island Overhaul Shops and was featured in a 2024 New York Times story on subway automotive restore. Ten pictures from that collection anchor the exhibition; an extra 40 pictures had been commissioned by MTA Arts & Design and produced between May and August 2026. 

The exhibit honors the previous 40 years of the MTA Arts and Design program whereas pointing to the ambitions of its subsequent chapter. Looking forward, riders can anticipate continued large-scale displays throughout this system’s areas together with images, digital artwork, graphic artwork, music, and extra. 

About MTA Arts & Design 

Since 1985, MTA Arts & Design has delivered progressive arts programming all through New York’s transit system. Over 4 many years, Arts & Design has constructed a set of award-winning artwork that displays the range of the New York City area and makes journey a extra participating expertise for tens of millions of riders each day. The program has commissioned greater than 400 everlasting artworks and activated subway and railroad stations, prepare automobiles, and bus depots with MTA Music performances, Poetry in Motion, posters, images, digital artwork, and particular occasions. 

About Christopher Payne  

Christopher Payne focuses on architectural images and the massive format documentation of America’s industrial heritage. Trained as an architect, he’s fascinated by design, meeting, and the constructed kind. Payne’s pictures invoke the previous grandeur of the positioning over completely different seasons, capturing hints of buried streets and infrastructure now reclaimed by nature, whereas additionally offering a singular glimpse right into a metropolis’s future with out individuals. Payne has been awarded grants from the Graham Foundation, the New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York Foundation for the Arts. His work has been featured in publications all over the world and several other occasions in particular displays by the New York Times Magazine.