CAST BRONZE GATES (AND BEES) ADORN


NEW YORK SUBWAY STOP


People entering and exiting a New York subway station buzz around like bees. One sculptor used that imagery as inspiration.


Christopher Russell was commissioned by New York City’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority to design gates for a subway stop in Brooklyn. Russell’s gates are 7 ft. (2.13 m) high and 6 ft. (1.83 m) long for the Ninth Avenue Station. They were installed in 2012.


According to various local news reports, the gates were cast in bronze at the Modern Art Foundry, Queens, New York. The gates depict 4 in. (10.16 cm) bees buzzing around a bronze honeycomb. Nearby fence posts are also topped with bees.


“The station is like a kiosk, and it reminded me of beehives—of people coming in and out of it, and doing their jobs,” Russell told the New York Times. 


56 | METAL CASTING DESIGN & PURCHASING | May/Jun 2016


Photo by Stefan Hagen, Courtesy of Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts & Design.


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