Going underground...

[venta]

Now then, you people who use the Underground. Especially regularly.


Some time ago, I commented to a London-dweller that I thought the mosaic effect in the long tunnel in Green Park was really clever. They looked blank. In Green Park station, there is a long tunnel you can walk down to get from the Piccadilly Line to the Jubilee line (or vice versa). At the Piccadilly end, its walls are white with occasional squares of Piccadilly blue. As you walk along, there are occasional Jubilee grey squares, which get more and more common, and eventually overrun the blue, as you reach the opposite end.

I've sporadically mentioned this to people who do this walk. So far, no one has ever noticed. Be honest: have you ever walked along there ? Did you notice ?

And I have another question: has anyone noticed that there are sometimes pictures on the walls of underground stations ? Many of these are obvious, like the silhouettes of Victoria and Sherlock Holmes at Victoria and Baker Street respectively. However, recent forays down the Victoria line have caused me to notice occasional rebus-like pictograms. There is, for example, a tiled image of a labyrinth at Warren Streen, and a pile of bricks at Brixton. Are there any more of these ? If not, why not, dammit ? And could we suggest any ?

Comments

[taimatsu]

next time I go to london I will specifically look at the walls of tube stations :) There is a station with bits of wheels on the walls, but I can't remember which. I

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

I suspect I am more likely than not to have used that transfer at Green Park and I don't recall the effect you mention.

I do recall, rightly or wrongly, American Airlines sponsoring one of the long tunnels (probably one between Bank and Monument) and decorating it with really rather nice advertainment.

[erming.livejournal.com]

British Museum at Holboln Picadilly Line
erm, sure there are things at highbury & Islington.

There is also strip light effects on the Picadilly Line at Leicester Square.

[spindlemere.livejournal.com]

I use Green Park to change between the Jubilee and Piccadilly Lines! I notice!

(But then, as you were the one who pointed this out to me and I was probably the Londoner who looked blank, I suspect I don't count...)

The Victoria Line seems to specialise in weird artwork - Highbury & Islington, my late unlamented former local station, had rather nice images of a castle at the top of a hill (the original "High Borough", I presume, which was burnt to the ground during the Peasants' Revolt). And there are strange shapes in the enamel of Swiss Cottage station (which also has very cool art deco lamps on the escalators).

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

Yes! I used to notice that, when I lived at the dark end of the Jubliee line and commuted to/from Soho...

Wapping station and the others on the East London Line that I've seen have interesting wall coverings, being some of the oldest.

[narenek.livejournal.com]

For many years I caught the Victoria line to and from school in Pimlico. During this time they refurbished many of the stations and ran posters somewhere (possibly in the little A4ish things at the end of each carriage) explaining why various images were being used.

IIRC:
Finsbury Park = Duelling Pistols, the park was a favourite spot for duelling in the days when it was outside of London
Highbury and Islington = Castle motif related to something in the area.
Kings Cross = 5 Crowns in a cross pattern
Euston = Design based on the (now demolished) Euston Arch
Oxford Circus = Design based on the interchange tunnels between platforms.
Green Park = leaf motif parky type theme
Pimlico = modern arty thing as the Tate is nearby
Vauxhall = Carousel horses, linked to the historic Vauxhall pleasure gardens
Brixton = a Ton of Bricks

can't remember what the others were, think it was initially very much a Victoria line thing, it might have spread in the past 10 years or so.

Apparently one of the platforms at Gloucester Road is used as an art gallery.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

More information on murals from thetube.com.

When you've finished encouraging us to look around underground, why not try looking up?

[spindlemere.livejournal.com]

Interesting!

It doesn't, alas, explain why there are murals of Ankhs on Bond Street station (Jubilee line), although - as a Sandman fan - I do find it oddly comforting.

[cardinalsin.livejournal.com]

I have taken that transfer 3 times in the last month and not noticed it.

[floralaetifica.livejournal.com]

I walk down that tunnel every day I go to work, and I hadn't noticed. But that may be because I'm generally so utterly filled with loathing for it that I'm too busy concentrating on controlling my Tube rage :)

Ditto! So ditto!

[lanfykins.livejournal.com]

One day I'll be featured in a news story along the lines of 'Technical Author in Chainsaw Massacre Shock'.

[satyrica.livejournal.com]

Gloucester Road has illuminated art exhibits on the non-platform side of the station when you're going east-bound (which is very confusing because, as it's all lit-up and isn't just a flat wall you assume it's the side you want to get off when it isn't . . .)

[triskellian]

I don't know if I've ever done that particular journey, but I'm generally very fond of the various bits of artwork and interesting design ('specially in the tiles) around tube stations. It makes me happy, because effort was put into making them beautiful and interesting, because that matters, and sad, because that much effort is rarely put into such buildings any more, as demonstrated by the newer stations :-(

[dmh.livejournal.com]

One of the station's got quite interesting Egyptian Stuff over the walls, but of course for the life of me I can't remember which one it is.

And I find the subject of abandoned stations quite fascinating... (especially since I read Neverwhere. ;o)

[(Anonymous)]

Not come across that book, but it sounds like I should search out a copy. Looking at Amazon for that, I also came upon a couple of books about the abandoned / ghost stations that look interesting. I have a map (probably no longer available, but entitled "The London Underground A Diagrammatic History" by Douglas Rose, which shows all stations and lines, together with when they opened, closed etc.

There's a really naff film - the title of which I do not recall - which IIRC has the premise that when they closed Museum station some people remained trapped underground, and "now" (many years later) emerge from the tunnels to kill. Great low-budget stuff. At the time I watched it (when living in London) I deduced it was filmed in a real station, but one on completely the wrong line. They had obviously replaced the station names, but the signs to exits / other lines remained. I can't remember now, but I think it was Russell Square.

--
Regards,
Richard

[dmh.livejournal.com]

Neverwhere was the Neil Gaiman book which became a TV series with help from Lenny Henry. (It looks like it was televised in 1996, which I find scary, as I was sure it was only a few years ago...) Roaming about the London Underground I'm not at all surprised people have drawn fantasy and horror inspiration from it...

[(Anonymous)]

My 4 years as a student in London were the last 4 years of the 80s. They were doing up a load of stations during that time, and so you could hardly not notice all these new murals &c as they were doing them. They were _such_ an improvement! Before the work the stations were really rather grim: think pictures of war-time Britons using them for shelters - they hadn't changed that much (except fewer bunk beds, obviously.) However, what I found most interesting was when they removed the old wall and ceiling panels to reveal even older stuff underneath.

Train spotting is rather sad - obviously. But London Underground nerdiness is entirely acceptable. IMHO, anyway. If the history of the tube interests you, the London Transport Museum at Covent Garden does (or, at least, did) have a load about it, particularly the wartime stuff. I have an almost unnatural fascination in the stations which have now shut or moved a few hundred yards. The recently-closed Post Office mini-tunnels warrant further research, too.

Another thing they were doing during the time I was living in London was installing those "Next train in x minutes" displays. They slowly introduced them a line at a time. On one occasion on Angel station they were working on them and one of those intersting locked doors on the platform was open - to reveal an old (genuine) IBM PC with a tiny 5" amber screen which was controlling them. As you know, the second line of the displays occasionally changes to scroll a no-smoking reminder across it; the blokey setting it all up was obviously bored, because he was making it display all manner or vaguely humorous quips.

--
Richard