Trading cards that highlight fun facts about retired subway conductors and operators. Key chains with a fake rat’s foot for “good train luck.” A bucket hat with a sliding veil that riders can borrow to cry in private.
These specialty items for straphangers, which they may not have even realized they need, or want, will be available for free starting on Saturday at a former newsstand inside the West 4th Street station in Manhattan.
The transit-themed newsstand will have no other purpose than to amuse and intrigue New Yorkers — or console them on a bad day — and make their commutes just a little better in the nation’s largest subway system.
It is the latest creation of Al Mullen, 37, a comedian and writer known for his humorous and upbeat takes on the transit world. The newsstand “snowballed” from his free zine, Public Transport Magazine, which he started in 2022 from his Brooklyn apartment and leaves on trains and in stations for riders to discover.
“Everyone’s on the subway,” Mr. Mullen said while fixing up the newsstand on a recent afternoon. “It’s a place where I can meet all kinds of people and see if they’ll be delighted.”
Mr. Mullen partnered with Art on the Ave NYC, a nonprofit that displays art in vacant storefronts, and the David Prize, a philanthropic initiative of the Walentas Foundation, to secure a one-year license for the shuttered newsstand from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
Then, Mr. Mullen enlisted the help of his friends and fellow transit enthusiasts to transform it into a place where busy New Yorkers would actually want to stop. Edward Steed, a cartoonist whose work has been featured in The New Yorker, designed a whimsical mural of trains, buses and people to wrap around the newsstand. Comedians, writers and artists are creating travel guides to the city’s 472 subway stations, which will be handed out at the newsstand.
Mr. Mullens also plans to offer live entertainment, including puppet shows that will run between train arrivals and departures. He is installing a photo booth with a subway pole that commuters can grab to find out “their inner train line.” The picture will show a colored circle around them, which corresponds to a particular subway line and reveals their “train aura.”
Even in its unfinished state, the newsstand on the downtown platform for the B, D, F and M trains has buzzed with activity. Riders have come over to ask directions to their trains. A group of teenagers on scooters zipped behind the counter and made themselves at home, pretending to hawk Newport cigarettes.
The other day, five big round clocks were behind the counter, all displaying the same exact time. Below each clock was a yellow sticky note with the name of one of the city’s five boroughs scrawled in red.
Markus Kusano, 35, a software engineer, stopped to tell Mr. Mullen how much he liked the clocks.
“I thought it was funny,” Mr. Kusano said afterward. “It’s kind of a New York or nowhere kind of thing — that’s all the time you need.”
The Subway As A Stage
Mr. Mullen grew up in the coastal town of Scituate, Mass., and later studied film at Occidental College in California. He arrived in New York City in 2011 and worked as a film and video editor. In his free time, he wrote and performed stand-up comedy.
But by 2019, Mr. Mullen was ready for a change. While reporting for jury duty one day, he looked around at all the different people in a Brooklyn courthouse and realized how small his own world was. “I wanted to reach out to people in some way,” he said. “I realized the closest thing to jury duty was the subway.”
So Mr. Mullen made the subway his stage. He created Public Transport Magazine on a home printer and distributed it with guerrilla-style drops on trains. It looked like a school project but was packed with a slew of talented comedians, writers, cartoonists and illustrators, including Jack Handey, an author and former writer for “Saturday Night Live,” and David Cross, an actor and comedian.
As it gained a following, he met Erika Augustine, the executive director of the David Prize, in 2024. He applied for the prize, which awards a total of $1 million annually to five New Yorkers who are working to make the city a better place. Though Mr. Mullen did not win, he made an impression.
“His love for the transit system, I think, is so uniquely New York,” Ms. Augustine said, adding that Mr. Mullen has inspired other straphangers to look past the usual gripes about train delays and rats.
Last year, Mr. Mullen reached out to Ms. Augustine with his idea for a transit-focused newsstand. She connected him with Barbara Anderson, the executive director of Art on the Ave NYC and a 2025 finalist for the David Prize.
Ms. Anderson’s group has organized art exhibits in 106 vacant retail spaces around the city since 2020. Last year, the group converted a newsstand in the West 81st Street station in Manhattan into a sound booth where riders can drop by to sing, play the piano, D.J. and catch live performances.
‘No Rats’ And Opportunity
On a Saturday in June, Mr. Mullen held up the keys to the newsstand for the first time outside the West 4th Street Station. “It feels like I’m holding the smallest trophy,” he said, before heading down the stairs to see what he had gotten himself into.
A few minutes later, he unlocked the newsstand to find Us Weekly and Cosmopolitan magazines from 2016 still sitting on the shelves and an unplugged Coca-Cola refrigerator in a corner. There was graffiti on several display cases and a thick coating of grime over everything.
“I feel like there’s a lot of opportunity here, a lot of dirt and no rats that I can see,” he said.
Mr. Mullen returned with cleaning supplies and friends to scrub the newsstand. They found a quarter and placed it on the counter. A man ran up, grabbed the quarter and jumped onto a train. “It was a heist,” Mr. Mullen said. “He hopped on a getaway train.”
The former newsstand was licensed rent-free through an M.T.A. program started in 2023 to activate former retail spaces in the subway with public art exhibits. Currently, there are 17 sites, including the newsstand-turned-sound-booth and another former retail unit that became a bodega for dinosaurs at the Grand Army Plaza station in Brooklyn.
Mr. Mullen received $10,000 in initial funding from the David Prize to develop and open his newsstand. He spent $4,200 on the mural, which included getting it made on vinyl. He plans to pay $100 each to other contributing artists and writers, including those creating the station guides.
Mr. Mullen, who works as a writer for a game show app, has not paid himself. He said he saw the newsstand as a space where he could collaborate with more people. “The New York thing is being in company with people, being in community,” he said. “And this is definitely an extension.”
Mr. Mullen and his friends will take turns staffing the newsstand from Friday to Sunday. He hopes to raise more money to keep the newsstand running for the next year.
Lily Crandall, 28, a textile artist, volunteered to make the trading cards of subway workers and even has a personal connection — her great-grandfather was a construction worker on the 8th Avenue line. “I love all of his ideas,” she said of Mr. Mullen. “They’re really fun to be a part of.”
The other day, Harris Alterman, 34, and Dave Ross, 43, both comedians, were taking measurements at the newsstand. In June, they had made a video of themselves putting up fake (and temporary) tech ads in Brooklyn subway stations to spoof the real ads that they said were annoying and ugly.
After their video went viral, Mr. Ross posted on social media asking if anyone had access to a space in the subway. Mr. Mullen replied, “Weirdly I do.” Now, the newsstand will host a one-day installation of their fake tech ads on August 8.
“I love how much art and music is in the city — and how much isn’t in the zeitgeist but the city supports it anyway,” Mr. Ross said. “There’s a little scene for everything if you can find it.”
