Meaning Cleaning February 21, 2008

February 21, 2008
Underpass between E/V trains and Downtown 6 train
New York City
2:00 - 3:30 pm

Collaboration between Hayley Severns and Angela Rose Voulgarelis Illgen

Supplies brought:
-Cleanser - 2 bottles
-Scrubbing pad - 5
-Yellow cloths - 4
-Floor wax - 2 bottles
-Floor shine - 1 bottle
-1 luggage cart
-1 shoulder bag

Hayley and I arrived at the same time to the underpass at 2pm. It has historically been one of the worst places to transfer for trains since I've been alive and living in New York. Always smells like urine, always littered with trash, always very busy with commuters.

TimeOut New York had recently featured a blurb about the station in its most recent issue, so the MTA cleaned the station a bit, but not enough where our work was not needed. It still smelled when we arrived, and it was still very grimy.

We decided to clean an area and make it spotless, a stark contrast to the rest of the transfer area. We wanted shiny floors and to infuse the space with lavender to contrast the urine aroma usually associated with that station.

We began on our hands and knees. Hayley swept the area with a hand held broom. I documented her process. I began scrubbing the floors after her, and then she continued on the opposite side of our area. It was interesting to notice our intervention in the space...we created a perimeter of Ajax cans and Fantastic bottles to keep people from stepping over our work, and it worked! People didn't walk through our work, with only the sign of the perimeter keeping them "out". It was really interesting.

Some people heckled us, all of them men.

Some people hated the smell of lavender and covered their faces with their jackets.

Many people walked by and thanked us. Many people said they loved the smell and thanked us for doing this. A Latino man said this was the first and best thing white people ever did in this country. He also segwayed into wanting us to see him naked when we were done cleaning.

We received good advice about where to buy high gloss floor shine products.

We told an MTA worker we had permission to be there.

The intervention/collaboration took about 1.5 hours. When we removed the sign of the perimeter, everyone just walked right over it as if it had never happened. That made me surprisingly angry. Once the sign was gone, it was as if we were never there.