Shad Crossing, Delancey Orchard

2004 Delancey Street–Essex Street (F, J, M, Z) New York City Transit

Ming Fay brings the liveliness of the thriving marketplace overhead into the station in this storied Lower East Side neighborhood. For this station, Fay extensively researched the neighborhood's history and created watercolor sketches that were transformed into glass mosaic murals by craftspeople. The images of “Shad Crossing” celebrate the return of the once abundant fish to New York and water as a metaphor for "crossing." “Delancey Orchard” is the mural on the Manhattan-bound platform, inspired by the prominent DeLancey family's eighteenth-century farm, which stretched from the East River to the Hudson River. The farm's cherry orchard was located where Orchard Street stands and is memorialized with radiant cherry trees on the Brooklyn-bound platform.