How BART Got Art - Page 6

Riding Tour of BART's Original Art

Hop on BART and take in its '60s-era galleries of art—station by station:

• Richmond station: William Mitchell's amazing mural can be spotted on the mezzanine, facing the escalator.

• El Cerrito del Norte and El Cerrito Plaza: Alfonso Pardiñas' murals are installed along the escalator walls.

• MacArthur: Mark Adams, known for watercolors, tapestry, and stained glass, originally installed an abstract mosaic over the main stairs. When the stairs were removed, Adams returned to the station to create two existing painted wall murals in the mezzanine. Two original tile murals by Adams and Pardiñas fill walls by the ticket machines.

• Lake Merritt: Mitchell's work can be seen in the sunken fountain area by the BART police headquarters, on Eighth Street between Madison and Oak streets. Mosaics by Pardiñas fill walls throughout the station, creating an artwork on the scale of a landscape.

• Union City: Whimsical murals by Jean Varda (with mosaic work by Pardiñas) are mounted alongside the entry to the station. They show castles and, perhaps, kings.

• Orinda: Win Ng's painted-on-concrete-walls mural on the mezzanine level has been defaced with billboards.

• Lafayette: Helen Webber's columns (with mosaic work by Pardiñas) are a joyful presence just past the fare booth. Note also the wonderfully curved iron grillwork in this station.

• Embarcadero: Stephen De Staebler's immense ceramic mural can be admired, in patchy views, at the south end of the platform and mezzanine. Mitchell's reliefs are train-side. A granite portrait plaque of Tallie Maule, by his colleague William Cullen, is on the mezzanine.

• 16th and 24th Streets: Reliefs by Mitchell are in the stairwells to the stations.

• Glen Park: Architect Ernest Born's marble murals can be seen along the tracks, and a major section of mural comes into view as the up escalator from the train reaches the mezzanine.