Arts for Transit and Urban Design

23rd Street

Valerie Jaudon

Long Division, 1988

Painted steel railings on downtown platform

Valerie Jaudon's Long Division at Lexington Avenue and 23rd Street serves as a functional security device and a welcoming entry. The 60-foot-long steel fence is an intricate pattern of crisscrossing arches and vertical lines that was designed by the artist to work as panels that form a unified set of connecting arch patterns. "The idea was to make a fence that functions as combination of wall, door, window, and column that allows you to see the entire station," Jaudon says of her work. Based on the success of Jaudon's ornamental work at 23rd Street, the MTA determined that similar artist-designed railings should be incorporated system-wide. (See 96th Street.)