A final panel shows a black and white photograph of an empty , rumpled bed .
The verse form , by Norman B. Colp , is aptly titled " The Commuter ’s Lament " or , perhaps more cryptically , " A Close Shave . " The alternate form of address is a reference to the Burma - Shave advertizement of the mid-20th hundred , which employed a similar mode of a serial of one - line signal drivers would read as they sped by . Colp told theNew York Timeshe was inspired by the highways out west that he and a lady friend used to force back along in the ' sixty where the Burma - Shave billboards were dominant .
Colp , a native New Yorker who expire away in 2007 , was know as an artist and photographer for his witty installations . He was commission to create a composition in 1991 as part of the MTA ’s Arts for Transit , a program started in 1986which devote 0.5 to 1 percent of a station ’s reclamation budget to land museum - desirable artwork into the otherwise - useful public transferral system of rules . Colp was paid $ 5000 for the sardonic piece .
The poem was earlier designate as a one - class showing , but the MTA take to leave it up ever since , allowing it to unite the ranks of lasting prowess installation throughout the underpass system . The last control board with the slept - in layer go drop after a 2005 station renovation but was reinstalled two year afterward .
In 2011 , two affirmative young college students in the area countersink out tochange the tonicity of the verse form . palpate that Colp ’s original work was too pessimistic , the pair of 20 - year - old learn it upon themselves to brighten some of the lines—“Overslept ” became “ Overexcited , ” “ So Tired ” became “ Energized . ”
The artist ’s widow woman , Marsha Stern - Colp , did not appreciate the amendment , saying at the prison term , “ Why be affirmative in these times ? Be realistic — life sucks . You get through it the best you could . ”
Whether or not that ’s honest , she conceded that what Colp had originally intended to project was not quite as desolate . “ His empathy for the overtired , exploit populace trudging to get to work was what it was all about . "
Original exposure by Flickr userNK Eide .
