CHAMBERS STREET MOSAIC

by Kevin Walsh

Subway mosaics, most of them fashioned between 1904 and 1928, sometimes depict scenes that were long vanished even before the stations in which they are displayed were built.

There’s this one, at the Chambers Street 7th Avenue IRT station, where the #1, 2 and 3 stop. Mosaic plaques against the wall in the express station show the original Kings College, with a pair of students in the front wearing robes and mortarboards. Kings College was located at West Broadway, Church, Barclay and Murray Streets (or where they would eventually be) from 1754-1857, when the institution moved uptown to Madison Avenue and East 49th, and later to Morningside Heights in 1897.

When America declared independence Kings College changed its name to Columbia College and today we know it as Columbia University.

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