Memories of Twenty-Third Street, Keith Godard (2002)
Location: 23rd Street

Mosaic hats are placed on the walls of the station above the heads of the waiting passengers. Keith Godard's "Memories of 23rd Street" includes not only allusions to famous New Yorkers who once frequented this intersection, but also an enduring legend. As the tale goes, the Flatiron Building, being much taller than its original neighbors, stirred up a great deal of wind. In an era when "A glimpse of stocking was [really!] looked on as something shocking," the winds attracted young lotharios, eager for a glimpse of forbidden leg. A stern cop would chase them -- giving them the "23 skidoo." Alas the slang term is much older than even the 1904 building. The wind surely set hats sailing as well. (Thanks to Harry Matthews.)

More info: a-g-i.org.

The hats of the following personalities are included: William Randolph Hearst, Lillian Russell, Tom Thumb (C.S.Stratton), Edwin Porter, John Barrymore, Jessie Tarbox Beals, Charles Melville Dewey, Lillie Langtry, Theodore Gordon, Sarah Bernhardt, Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens), Bert Williams, James Corbett (Gentleman Jim), Eva Tanghay, Henry James, Eleanor Roosevelt, Harry Houdini (Erich Weiss), Anna Held, Scott Joplin, Harriet Blatch, Isadora Duncan, Mary Pickford, Sadakichi Hartman, Augustus St Gaudens, Mary Gardeo, Joseph Barondess, Ethel Barrymore, Clement C. Moore, Gertrude Kasebier, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, Oscar Wilde, Arthur B.Davis, Robert Adamson, Maud Nathan, Billie Burke, Thomas Alva Edison, Fay Templeton, Florenz Ziegfeld, Loie Fuller, Jim Brady, Edward Penfield, Marcelle Earle, Nellie Bly, William A Pendergast, Winslow Homer, Stanford White, William Barclay Parsons, Marie Curie, Evelyn Nesbit, Chaim Zhitovsky, Charles Ives, Jake Harnett, William DuBois, Norma Tallmadge, William Sidney Porter (O.Henry), Samuel Gompers, Julia Ward Howe, Grace LaRue, P. T. Barnum, Robert Ross McBurney.