Public Art – Live Laugh Love Do http://livelaughlovedo.com A Super Fun Site Sun, 12 Oct 2025 15:24:54 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.1 Why Grand Central Station just replaced all of its ads with art http://livelaughlovedo.com/career-and-productivity/why-grand-central-station-just-replaced-all-of-its-ads-with-art/ http://livelaughlovedo.com/career-and-productivity/why-grand-central-station-just-replaced-all-of-its-ads-with-art/#respond Sun, 12 Oct 2025 15:24:54 +0000 http://livelaughlovedo.com/2025/10/12/why-grand-central-station-just-replaced-all-of-its-ads-with-art/ [ad_1]

Commuting in New York City can be a relentless sensory overload—the hustling, the pushing, the yelling, the ads whirling from every side. Getting to work can feel like a frantic race of people trying to escape the train station all at once.

While the city hurtles past in a blur, Brandon Stanton has stopped to write it a love letter—on the walls of Grand Central itself. For the first time, the terminal and its subway station have been completely cleared of flashing advertisements and replaced with art. 

Brandon Stanton

More than 150 digital screens now display thousands of portraits and stories from Stanton’s Humans of New York—the largest and most diverse collection of New York City portraits ever created by a single artist, featuring over 10,000 photographs and interviews with people all around the world.

Running through October 19, Dear New York is a first-of-its-kind immersive experience that vividly celebrates the people of New York. Located in a landmark through which more than 750,000 people pass daily, the station serves as a crossroads for locals, commuters, and tourists alike, allowing the art to reach and touch people from all walks of life. 

[Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton]

The process of clearing out the space and replacing it with art, Stanton explains, was monumental. “I would say it took 1,000 ‘yeses’ to make this happen. One ‘no’ could have completely made it fall apart,” he says.

[Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton]

In a six-month sprint, Stanton had to align a tangle of stakeholders—from the MTA and Metro-North Railroad to Outfront Media and the State Historic Preservation Office. “It was a mix between a commercial and a political negotiation,” he says.

[Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton]

Outfront Media owns 80% of the screen time in Grand Central Station and is driven solely by profit, leaving Stanton with no choice but to negotiate pricing to gain access. The remaining 20% of display space is controlled by the MTA and usually used for public service announcements. 

“I had to persuade this bureaucracy that what I was doing was philanthropic for the city, and worthy of this unprecedented space,” Stanton says. “Nobody had ever spent this kind of money on something completely unsponsored before.”

[Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton]

Without disclosing exact figures, Brandon noted that he funded the installation entirely from the savings he had built over 15 years from his Humans of New York photo blog and book—with no sponsors involved.

Negotiations alone took three to four months, he recalls, but throughout the arduous process, “There were some early believers in the MTA. I ran into so many dead ends and walls while I was trying to make this. But at each point, there would be a person who really believed in it, who gave me energy and strength when I needed it most.”

[Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton]

He singled out Dorit Phinizy, director of events at Grand Central, as the first person to see him not as a potential revenue source, but as “an artist trying to achieve a vision—and thinking about how, within the confines of my job, I can help and contribute to this vision.” Phinizy’s name appears fourth in the credits as “chief creative consultant,” for her shepherding the project through the layers and layers of MTA approvals.

[Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton]

What began as a solo effort quickly expanded into a major collaboration. Stanton later brought in Broadway designer David Korins, who donated his time, and the design firm Pentagram, which contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars in design services, including 3D mapping of the subway. The Juilliard collaboration for the musical component was put together in just a week. 

[Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton]

The art now stretches across every corner of Grand Central. In the main concourse, 50-foot projections wrap around soaring arches and marble columns, immersing passersby in the city’s stories. Subway tunnels, stairwells, and side corridors come alive with hundreds of digital screens, each capturing faces, expressions, and snippets of daily life. 

[Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton]

Vanderbilt Hall hosts a community gallery featuring work from more than 600 public school students alongside emerging local artists. The crowning touch comes from 100-plus hours of live music, as 50 Juilliard students and alumni perform classical, jazz, and collaborative piano pieces on a Steinway grand.

In the surge of commuters, Stanton explains: “Many of my quotes on Instagram are much longer, but I distilled hour-long interviews into quick, digestible moments that anyone can absorb even while walking by.” He adds: “And watching people walk through this busy, crowded place and actually stop to read—it’s very gratifying.”

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]]> http://livelaughlovedo.com/career-and-productivity/why-grand-central-station-just-replaced-all-of-its-ads-with-art/feed/ 0 BLKOUT Walls Mural Festival Returns With 10 New Murals Across Detroit http://livelaughlovedo.com/entertainment/blkout-walls-mural-festival-returns-with-10-new-murals-across-detroit/ http://livelaughlovedo.com/entertainment/blkout-walls-mural-festival-returns-with-10-new-murals-across-detroit/#respond Thu, 11 Sep 2025 19:29:52 +0000 http://livelaughlovedo.com/2025/09/12/blkout-walls-mural-festival-returns-with-10-new-murals-across-detroit/ [ad_1]

Make the city brighter! The BLKOUT Walls Mural Festival is back for its third annual celebration in Detroit, Michigan, running Monday, Sept. 8 through Sunday, Sept. 14.

This year, the event will unveil 10 new large-scale murals by local and national artists, transforming spaces across the area.

Lamar Landers 

“Attendees will experience a different landscape of the city,” BLKOUT Walls founder Sydney G. James tells ET. 

“The featured artists are painting on walls located in the Woodbridge and Franklin neighborhoods and on East Jefferson Avenue.”

Beyond enjoying the art itself, guests can attend talks to hear the inspirations behind the installations, each designed to amplify BIPOC voices. 

Lamar Landers 

“We prioritize small business-owned properties to adorn. The owners of the property and the surrounding neighbors get beautification revitalization,” James explains.

The 2025 theme, A Beautiful Resistance, challenges selected participants to reshape the atmosphere of their environments through vibrant, joy-filled work. 

“A mural, sculpture, and/or art installation is meant to create and/or change a mood of a space,” James says. 

For James and her fellow artists, it’s also about supporting the community. 

Lamar Landers 

“Art itself — or better yet, the sharing of art — is giving back, especially when referring to public art,” she notes. 

Before wrapping up the festival, there will be a BLKOUT Walls Block Party on Saturday, Sept. 13, from 1–5 p.m. at Spirit Plaza (2 Woodward Ave., Detroit, MI 48226).

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]]> http://livelaughlovedo.com/entertainment/blkout-walls-mural-festival-returns-with-10-new-murals-across-detroit/feed/ 0 French Toilets of Spikersuppa – Atlas Obscura http://livelaughlovedo.com/culture-and-society/french-toilets-of-spikersuppa-atlas-obscura/ http://livelaughlovedo.com/culture-and-society/french-toilets-of-spikersuppa-atlas-obscura/#respond Mon, 25 Aug 2025 17:07:14 +0000 http://livelaughlovedo.com/2025/08/25/french-toilets-of-spikersuppa-atlas-obscura/ [ad_1]

Olso. Capital of Norway. Gateway for many to the country’s stunning fjords. The city is home to some of Norway’s iconic sights, like the King and Queen’s Palace, Vigeland Sculpture Park, and the Viking Ship Museum. While strolling the through the great Nordic city, you might sense the call of nature, and begin a frantic search for a public toilet. If you’re in the Spikersuppa area, you’re in luck!

But you might be surprised by the three public toilets in Spikersuppa Square. Each toilet is stylized as a stripe of the French flag and they are topped with the words “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.” Turns out these are not just a quirky piece of public art, but have a much deeper meaning than meets the eye.

The toilets are the brainchild of the Norwegian artist Lars Ramberg, who created them to celebrate one hundred years of Norwegian independence, calling the work “a contemporary Statue of Liberty.”

What do French toilets have to do with Norwegian independence? It might seem like a bit of a stretch, but Ramberg wanted a French symbol as a base, figuring that the two nations shared certain democratic values. That presumably explains the words. Fine so far, but toilets?

Upon the unveiling of the work, known as “Liberté,” a local newspaper had this to say about the meaning: “The freestanding toilets are the smallest cells of public architecture, representing the smallest cell of the people. It offers privacy physically as well as psychologically, yet it is in public. Slightly manipulated and restyled, it supports the idea of individual freedom, physical hygiene and national identity, as a new statue of liberty for both countries.” Pretty heavy stuff to contemplate as you do your business. Even stranger, World War II speeches of Franklin D. Roosevelt, Charles de Gaulle and Norway’s King Haakon play from speakers inside the toilets when a patron enters.

Naturally, the toilets didn’t come without controversy; the cheeky concept suffered two years of public squabbling, debates, and attempts to flush the project before finally getting the go-ahead. It all started in 2003, with a competition to award an artist with a project to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Norwegian independence. Ramberg’s toilets won, but all hell broke loose as the museum where the toilets were to be placed rejected the idea as, understandably, crass and off the wall.

They were especially upset that the toilets were actually functioning, considering it a slap in the face to the noble idea of Norwegian independence. A debate ensued, resignations were thrown about, and the public joined in the fight. The toilets saw the light of day only after a new location, the Spikersuppa Square, was found. Sadly, they haven’t caught on as a beloved Oslo icon and leave most people scratching their heads.

The toilets are still fully functioning today (sort of), but have been mostly canned on Google Reviews due to frequently being out of order or quite dirty. Love them or hate them, you can’t deny Oslo needs more public toilets.



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