New York City commuters are always “Under Pressure,” it seems, but at least now they’ll travel around the Big Apple with the help of late music icon David Bowie! Starting this week, NYC’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority will distribute 250,000 “Tickets to Mars,” i.e. a quarter million MetroCards printed with images of the singer, who sadly passed away in January 2016.
These Bowie-themed MetroCards celebrate the exhibit “David Bowie Is,” currently on view at the city’s Brooklyn Museum. Each of the cards — which are being randomly distributed from Manhattan’s Broadway-Lafayette and Bleecker St. subway stations — bears one of five images from the exhibition that honor different phases of David’s career. (Thin White Duke? Check. Ziggy Stardust? Check. Aladdin Sane? Check.)
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The cards are a collaboration between the museum and the music streaming service Spotify, which has also decked out the Broadway-Lafayette station with wall-sized photos of the “Life on Mars” singer and a map of some of his favorite Greenwich Village spots, including the former location of the Looking Glass Studios. Plus, Spotify has posted codes that link users to audio files of David’s music.
“The intricate details that make up the subway takeover speak to key moments in Bowie’s New York City history, many of which were in the neighborhood surrounding Broadway-Lafayette, where he spent over two decades,” Spotify says in a press release. “From legendary concerts at Carnegie Hall to recording sessions at studios like Electric Lady and the Magic Shop, the takeover beautifully explores how the City impacted the artist and speaks to visitors about the truly unforgettable mark of New Yorker David Bowie.”
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Don’t live in New York City? Not to worry — you can still delve deeper into the life of the prolific pop star with Spotify Spolight’s David Bowie Stories. “This series will give fans an even deeper look into the life of the musical icon,” the company says, “with content including anecdotes, tall tales, origin stories, making of’s, mini-essays and more, paired with photos, video, and items from the David Bowie Archive.”
The 69-year-old, born David Robert Jones, died of liver cancer in 2016 after a five-decade career and six Grammy wins. But it’s clear his legacy — and, yes, his “Fame” — will live on for years to come.
