Design

An Artist Brings NYC Back to the '80s on the G Train

"A New York Project" invites participants to step into New York City's past—starting with a pop-up subway party with the original Guardian Angels.
Oscar Montoya (center), MC of last Friday's moveable launch party for artist Shaina Stigler's "A New York Project," gets the ball started.Shavon Meyers

The graffiti was scrawled on plastic sheeting that covered the walls and windows of the subway car rather than on the walls and windows themselves. The atmosphere was festive, not grim. The air conditioning was working. People riding the train—and dancing to Prince and other vintage tracks—thought nothing of waving around pocket computers (a.k.a. cellphones) that cost a few hundred bucks and would be easy targets for an enterprising thief.

In other words, it was nothing like the 1980s.