William Jerome, 'Down in the Subway', 1904, image from the songbook digitized at JScholarship.  BL copy at H.3987.f.(34.)

I just popped out of the Library to St Pancras next door (inadvertently messing up my punch clock), not for travel, but for artistic purpose: the collection of a small sculpture by Ann Carrington, who installed 13 'shell ladies' around Margate (not for the BL collections, I should add, although there are a fair few pieces of art distributed around the St Pancras site).  I am now safely clocked back in, the mini-shell lady is now safely at my desk, and, it turns, out, Carrington has a new work, 'Manhattan Mettle' in the W Hotel, New York, made out of 'metal punching, dollars, dimes, subway tokens, spanners, nails, pins...'.  I wonder if such an endeavour could be constructed from the subway tokens' replacement, the MetroCard?

[MJS]