Although the subway system is New York City’s bloodstream, most riders rarely slow down to wonder where the giant metal cars came from, or where they go after their last stop. Now, a new photography exhibit is transporting passersby into the spaces where the city’s subways and buses reside when they’re off duty, and even the spaces where they’re made.

Commissioned by MTA Arts & Design, In Service: MTA Photographs by Christopher Payne is the agency’s first systemwide photography exhibition capturing a behind-the-scenes look into the machines of NYC’s transit system.

Presented in 52 light boxes, the large photographs are displayed across five locations in Manhattan and Brooklyn: Grand Central Madison, Grand Central Dining Concourse, 42 St-Bryant Park, Bowling Green, and Atlantic Av-Barclays Ctr.

A resident of Inwood, Payne was captivated by the 207th Street Overhaul Shop, a nearby 43-acre complex where subway cars go to be repaired. Built from the late 1920s through the early 1930s, the shop services the R62 trains—the stainless steel orange-seated cars that ride the numbered lines. He became fixated on entering 207th Street and other overhaul shops around the city to see the cars stripped of their elements.

The documenting of these spaces began as a personal project, before becoming the basis for a story for The New York Times . Eventually, it led him to work with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) to get unprecedented access to shops across the city as well as the other factories around the country that help build New York’s transit cars.

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