81st Street Museum of Natural History

In the 1990's, the 81st Subway Station was renovated with a tile mosaic installation, in coordination with the construction of the Rose Center for Earth and Space, a nearby planetarium.

New York City's Arts for Transit Department created the mixed-media installation, which is titled "For Want of a Nail," named from the old proverb, for it addresses the interconnections of entities that are as vast as a galaxy and as small as a single cell.

Tile Mosaic Dinosaurs

The mosaics cover stairs and platforms, extending into floor inlays. Stairwells evoke descents into the geological strata of the Earth (at 81st Street) or into the Ocean (79th Street.) Many creatures are evoked in mosaic vignettes that punctuate the stretches of white-tiled wall. Fossil casts seem to emerge from the tiles as though the subway platform were itself an excavation - which indeed it is.

Using ceramic tile, glass tile, glass mosaic, bronze relief, and granite as primary materials, the design team depicted the evolution of extinct, existing and endangered life forms-from single celled organisms to the towering T-rex dinosaur. It shows images and symbols ranging from the earth's core, to the sea, the sky and the cosmos beyond. No artist has been identified in this group project.