New York is finally building another subway line on the East Side, and if these photos by Metropolitan Transit Authority staff photographer Patrick Cashin are to be believed, it will be a magical cave of wonders. Well, OK, once it’s done it will probably just be a regular old subway, but Cashin’s pictures (click to embiggen) make it seem way cooler.
Cashin has been documenting the Second Avenue Subway since 2009, shortly after construction finally began on a project 90 years in the making.
He told the Flickr blog that he visits every few months and is constantly surprised by how much progress is being made, and the way a 22-foot hole can be transformed seemingly overnight into a giant cavern.
It’s clear from his interview with Flickr that Cashin has a slightly poetic view of the subway:
These caverns are man-made — created from scratch. It feels like you’re in the center of the Earth but really we’re right underneath the busiest city in the world. It’s incredible.
Maybe that explains why his photos make the construction look so otherworldly.
