Lower Manhattan’s transit network, the Fulton Center has been transformed into a poetic tribute to the subway system. Commissioned by MTA Arts & Design to commemorate its 40th anniversary, Pentagram partner and designer, Giorgia Lupi and team created A Data Love Letter to the Subway, a 2-minute synchronized animation displayed every hour across 52 digital screens in the station.
Rather than display real-time crowd counts or service disruptions, Lupi abstracts the movement, history and character of each subway line: their age, path, above-ground sections, intersections and missed connections. Each line is visualised as a distinct “character” extracted from the MTA’s open data sets and the station’s longstanding “missed connections” board. “By turning the overfamiliar into a dreamy narrative, Lupi’s Love Letter reveals the connections that hum in the background of our shared urban life” says Pentagram.
Visually, the animation is rendered in black & white with a hand-drawn, picture-book aesthetic, a deliberate contrast to the usual barrage of advertising screens in the transit hub whilst adding a whimsical and elemental nature to offset the typical visual noise at Fulton Center. The train’s lines are rendered with a hand-drawn quality, integrating the feeling of the initial sketches and map. This visual restraint invites passers-by to pause and reflect, rather than simply rush through.
The , infrastructure becomes narrative, data becomes metaphor, and the subway becomes a connective tissue of shared urban life. As Lupi puts it, the piece encourages us to “see the subway and our daily journeys with a bit more poetry and wonder.”
A Data Love Letter to the Subway runs at the top of every hour through 5 January 2026 at Fulton Center.
