Portals are openings to somewhere else; their presence delineates between two distinct physical spaces. In the context of the New York City mass transit system, the stairwells and elevator shafts distributed across the city’s boroughs act as portals, signifiers of the border between the diverse, contextually saturated environment of the metropolitan street and the standardized, monotonous quality of the subterranean landscape.

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Portals is a photography series documenting the entrances to the underground stations of the New York City subway system. While the entire city rail system is generally understood as one collective entity, approximately sixty percent lies below ground, operating entirely underneath the streets of four of the five boroughs. These entrances act as the only form of navigational markers for an invisible infrastructure traversed by over five million passengers daily.

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See the Constraints page for further understanding of the project scope and process.

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The first exhibition of the project took place in April 2018 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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All photographs documented May - August 2017

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Select images from the project are posted on social media at @takethe___train