Some art is meant to be admired while sipping champagne and nibbling on charmoix in a gallery, but some art is meant to be caught in flashes from a rattling subway car, livening an otherwise mind-numbing ride from Brooklyn to Manhattan. Neither art form is more valid than the other, rather each is best appreciated and understood through a different medium. On the N, Q, and R line between two popular stops—Canal Street and 8^th Street, NYU—the N and R subways stop at Prince Street.

A rather subtle mural decorates the entire 1200 feet of both the uptown and downtown sides of the platform. Thin sheets of metal cut into figures are layered over the typical New York City subway station tiling, depicting a scene of New Yorkers in a subway station. Janet Zweig created this artwork, titled Carrying On, in 2004. The piece was created using steel, marble, and slate.

The 194 monochromatic figures are merely outlines; they do not have facial features. Yet their postures and possessions provide clues to their lives. Since New York is an incredibly diverse city, Zweig included New Yorkers from many social and economic groups, as is guessed at by what they are carrying.

As the title—Carrying On— indicates, the people’s possessions describe their backgrounds. While some men haul garbage bags, others hold briefcases. Some women walk briskly with an umbrella, and others hold their child’s hand. This piece, then, points out the diversity and fundamental differences between New Yorkers as a group. Some people go home from jobs at investment banks to ritzy apartments by Central Park while others leave their jobs as dishwashers to go home to a crowded part of Queens. Yet, despite our differences, this mural highlights subways as an equalizer between groups. No matter who you are, everyone swiped their Metro Cards for $2.50 to ride this train: it serves the same purpose for all of us. Similarly, each New Yorker is carrying something, and while some items are heavier or bulkier than others, these items represent our worries, fears, and stress. They symbolize our jobs, our families, and our backgrounds.

In addition to what we carry, Zweig indicates another belief in this artwork. To “carry on” means to persevere, to tough out the bad times. New Yorkers are proud to live life at an East coast pace and to be an example of the American dream. That dishwasher may work hard, get a little lucky and someday own the restaurant. That investment banker may still be paying off his student loans. It is hard to tell what someone is battling based only upon what they carry through a subway station, but Zweig points out that each of us is carrying something, and more importantly, that we will carry on.

While looking at this piece, one notices a sort of irony: in a crowded subway station full of busy people, no one stops to look at the art surrounding them—art which depicts them. Yet when a Q train rushes past, people’s faces stare out the windows, some of them noticing the art. This piece, I think, is not meant to be absorbed on the platform while one waits, for it isn’t practical to walk the length and look at each figure. Rather it is intended to be viewed exactly as most people see it: from the train.

When the train goes through Prince Street station—slowing, stopping, jerking back, a pause for people to get on and off, and then lurching forward—one notices this artwork in a different way. The figures appear to be moving. They walk forth along their subway platform, hurrying towards an unseen train or climbing a flight of stairs towards the exit. In this way, the mural echoes a classic scene of city life.

Zweig places the stairs in her mural close to the center, making them a focal point both for people on the platform and those on the train. The stairs are also one of the more active areas of the mural, just as in real life, for more people are concentrated there. On the stairway, there is a woman holding a shopping bag climbing towards the exit, a man carrying a boulder, and a man hunched over his bags, to name a few. These characters point to the diversity and bustling nature of the city. In fact, there is a distinct air of business in the mural, for no one seems to be at a standstill—everyone has a destination. Similarly, on the platform, people are too absorbed in their own thoughts and plans even to pay much mind to their surroundings. In the mural, the figures don’t pay each other any attention, just as, for the most part, on the platform, people ignore each other, waiting for their trains.

This mural is not worth a trip specifically to see it, but keep your eyes open for Carrying On the next time you are on the N or R train through lower Manhattan. Subway art gives us something to appreciate on sometimes-tedious journeys, and Janet Zweig’s art provokes thoughts about the character (and characters!) of our city, pointing out the diversity but also that which binds us together.