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By Hannah Frishberg
Brooklyn Daily
The mosaic signs at a Gowanus subway station are still made of cardboard more than a year after a pricey overhaul.
The Smith–Ninth Street station reopened with the makeshift signage in April 2013 after a two-year, $41-million renovation that was plagued by delays and budget overruns, which the Metropolitan Transportation Authority chalked up to mismanagement and shoddy work by the contractor.
The agency pledged the following month that it would replace the paper fill-ins with actual tile, the New York Daily News reported, but the cardboard cut-outs are still in place and we are not getting any younger.
One subway-art aficionado was flabbergasted by the delay.
“I have no idea why the MTA has not updated the mosaics,” said Adam Chang, who runs the tile-sign website NY Train Project, speculating that it might be due to budget cuts.
Another straphanger found the deceptive lettering funny.
“I think it’s an odd way of simulating people’s expectations,” said Patrick Soto, a Boerum Hill resident.
The transit agency fabricated the faux-saics itself when the original contractor bungled the operation. A representative said. Transit honchos have retained a new company to replace the cardboard with actual tile by the summer’s end, according to agency spokespeople.