Running from 8th Avenue to Canarsie-Rockaway, New York City’s L Train is most famous for always being under construction and always being packed with Williamsburg’s finest hipsters.
The L Train became even cooler this week thanks to the agency WeMakeCoolSh.It and 1441, a writers collective based in Bushwick, Brooklyn. From Monday, 11/14 to Friday, 11/19, if you ride the L train between 8 and 10 am, look for the Wi-Fi signal “L Train Notwork.” The L-train-only web is not the plot of a Philip K. Dick novel, writes 1441, but a fantastic local art project.
Connect to the network for an underground intranet public art installation featuring art, literature, poetry and prose curated by 1441 members Justin Richards, Matt Zingg, Robin Grearson, Dolan Morgan and Michael Lala. The “notwork” also gives users the ability to chat with others on the train and get live news updates. If you have enough room on the train to pull out your phone and connect, it’s a fun experiment, although the signal is by no means lightning fast. Still, props to WeMakeCoolSh.It for indeed making cool shit. Check out what it looks like here:
“The decidedly Web 1.0 look of the not-work reminds you that you’re not on the Internet, you’re on an intranet (and on the subway), but writing from Craig Savino, Rachel B. Glaser, Ruth M. Rouse, Melea Seward and Katelan V. Foisy, along with interactive chat features and artwork curated by local artists will all help you forget where you’re going.”
-1441
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The group has not sought permission from the MTA, wrote The Daily News and an MTA spokesperson had no comment. “No one has talked to us in an official capacity,” McGregor-Mento, co-founder of the 1441 group said to The Daily News. “As far as we know, we’re not breaking any rules.”
The Notwork will only be running for one week, but new content will appear Monday through Friday, so go check it out, and have a fun commute. Let us know what you think in the comments. And also, isn’t it about time that New York City’s Metro Transit had its own official WiFi?
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