Exclusive | NYC artists creative quick fix for cracked subway tiles goes viral

Cracks aren’t wack.The MTA is more than a transit system for New Yorkers — it’s a lifeline that keeps the city going.But with over 8 million residents and riders, things are bound to break. Now, one Brooklyn artist has uncovered a way to turn at least one of the system’s structural flaws into art — a cracked tile at a time. Eujue, no last name, recently went viral on social media with a post that snagged over a million views — showing her replacing a broken “E” tile at Delancey St.-Essex St.

station, on Manhattan’s Lower East Side.The tile wasn’t restored with the boring black text.

Instead, Eujue exchanged it with her own live creation — a ceramic square where the “E” is made with living chia plants. Eujue told The Post she got the idea after remembering a poem she read back in college — All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace, by Richard Brautigan. “This speculative world described a future where plants, animals, and technology coexisted in harmony.This pushed me to want to build speculative objects that existed in a post apocalyptic future; a world where plants reclaim spaces that were once theirs,” the nature-loving New Yorker told The Post.The Brooklynite doesn’t want missing tiles to be seen as a maintenance problem anymore.

She encouraged artists to be inspired by this moment to “shape the city around them.”“NYC has always been a place where artists shape the city’s culture, and I hope our public spaces can reflect that.I’d love to make the everyday places we move through feel more cared for and more connected to the people who live here,” she said.Delancey St.

was just the beginning. Eujue and her brother built NYC Tile Watch — a website where New Yorkers can report missing or damaged subway tiles.The site was created so routine subway upkeep and public art could coexist. Once a report is made, local artists can fix the broken tiles by turning them into their own creation, bringing life into the...