MIDTOWN, Manhattan (WABC) — In the heart of New York City, where some 750,000 people pass through every day, something extraordinary is happening.
Grand Central’s walls, ceilings, and even subway platforms have been transformed into a canvas of photos and stories of everyday New Yorkers, under the vision of Brandon Stanton.
“So, the entire terminal is being turned over to the people of New York City. Not only my photos and the stories that I’ve collected of New Yorkers from the past 15 years, but also a thousand different collaborators, including 600 schoolchildren,” Stanton said. “The subway is absolutely beautiful right now. It’s nothing but New Yorkers and their stories, and they are everywhere.”
It’s “Dear New York,” a visual love letter to the city, and the largest takeover in Grand Central’s 112-year history.
It’s all the work of one man, with one mission.
Stanton moved to New York from Georgia, with a dream.
“I moved to New York to be an artist,” he said. “I just wanted to try to create something beautiful.”
If you don’t know Stanton, you will likely know his work.
For 15 years, he’s been photographing strangers on the street, asking them to share their stories.
You could say he’s the human behind Humans of New York.
“My first crazy idea, I was going to photograph 10,000 New Yorkers, and I was going to plot their photos on a map,” Stanton said. “I started having conversations with the people I was photographing, and my work became a collection of the stories and deep-lived experiences of random people.”
It turned into something much more: a movement.
“I’m not giving my opinion on these people. I’m not taking an angle on them. I’m trying to facilitate a sharing of their lived experience,” Stanton said.
That hope, and that connection is everywhere in the space created at Grand Central, and in Stanton’s latest book, “Dear New York.”
“Every type of person, ethnicity, viewpoint, culture, are all packed into this one place, and it all works,” Stanton said. “If we can give every one of them just a small moment of joy, beauty or solace or connection, then this huge, wild piece of art has succeeded.”
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