MTA Arts & Design

Huntington

Joe Zucker

For My Grandfather Noye Pride, a Locomotive Engineer, 1998

Faceted glass in windscreen

At Huntington, Joe Zucker's 130-foot fantasy train chugs animatedly down the platform while serving as a windscreen. Each faceted glass panel shows a cartoon-like flatcar hauling Long Island wares and sights, one to a car. We see an oversized lobster, giant duck, jumbo potatoes, and a big bluefish. Other images are the Montauk lighthouse and a sailboat. Zucker's fanciful images - the bluefish is green, the potato is blue - are rendered in faceted glass, equally powerful day and night. Says Zucker; "I hope that this piece brings travelers enjoyment, that it gives them memories and of Long Island and moments of pleasure." As the title indicates, members of the artist's family were employed on the railroad: "It is in memory of my grandfather and uncles who served as engineers and firemen on the trains of a distant past."