New York City's upcoming Second Avenue
subway line includes a mural of a gay male couple holding hands.
The mural is based on a photo of Thor
Stockman, 60, and his husband of three-and-a-half years, Patrick
Kellogg, 47. Both are casually dressed. Kellogg is wearing overalls
and holding a black bag, while Stockman is dressed in jeans and a
baseball cap. It is part of artist Vik Muniz's “Perfect
Strangers,” a series of mosaic portraits lining the walls of the
subway station at 72nd street.
“It was like winning the lottery,”
Stockman told the AP.
The new subway line is scheduled to
open January 1.
The photo that the mural is based on
was taken more than three years ago. The men were asked to have
their photo taken in Brooklyn by a photographer who was working on
the project.
“Our friends were happy that this is
gay representation on the walls of New York City, but our friends
were even happier that this is gay representation that is not
incredibly beautiful and skinny,” Kellogg told the AP.
Jonathan David Katz, an expert in queer
art history, said that such public art is rare.
“[T]he work naturalizes gayness
within the fabric of the city, and in so doing, that's actually an
even more powerful message,” Katz
said.