The Subway Sun/Chinatown
Artist
Fred Cooper
United States, 1883 - 1962
Date1938
MediumOffset Lithograph
Dimensions16 1/4 x 22 in. (41.3 x 55.9 cm)
ClassificationsPoster
Credit LinePoster House Permanent Collection
Object numberPH.8054
DescriptionThe Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT) opened New York City’s original underground subway line in October 1904. In order to entice people to regularly use the subway, the IRT printed two in-car poster campaigns, The Elevated Express and The Subway Sun, that highlighted each borough’s unique attractions.This edition of The Subway Sun, designed by Fred Cooper, advertises Manhattan's Chinatown. Chinese immigrants began settling in large numbers in New York City during the 1870s, creating their own communities along Mott, Pell, and Doyers Streets. The proliferation of Chinese societies and businesses in the area, most notably laundries and restaurants, led to the New York Times naming it “China Town” in an 1880 article. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, the Chinese population there expanded, attracting tourists to Chinatown from other parts of the city.
Uptowners who traveled downtown often had stereotypical, negative assumptions about Chinatown and its inhabitants, but they nonetheless explored its joss houses (Taoist temples or shrines), notorious opium dens, and its food. This included such “Chinese” dishes, adapted to the American palate, as Chop Suey.
Here, Cooper avoids the cartoon style of his other designs and presents a more realistic illustration of a Chinese woman and child. Meanwhile, the dragon is a symbol of good luck and prosperity within the Chinese lunar calendar and was often used as a decorative motif on buildings, signs, and menus in the neighborhood.
While Chinatown is still a vibrant part of Manhattan, the means of transport promoted in this poster—the Second and Third Avenue Lines, commonly known as the Second and Third Avenue Elevateds (or Els)—gradually phased out service to Manhattan to make way for the new consolidated subway system. The Second Avenue El was shut down in 1942 and the Third Avenue El in 1955.
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