I can’t put my finger on exactly why, but I really like the old-fashioned mosaics of the station names that you see in a lot of subway stations in New York. Moving here after five years in Europe, I often lament that things in the States feel too new and modern and clean, that there’s no sense of history here, and that there’s little art or artistry in day to day things. The walls of the subway stations are one place where New York has Paris beat. I love that the mosaic tiles aren’t perfectly regular in their size, shape, and color. These mosaics remind me more than anything of a bunch of just-uncovered tiled Roman floors I saw in the Italica ruins in southern Spain.