Where do subway cars go to die? In the case of New York City, many of them have been dumped in the ocean. But this is not the flagrant act of pollution that it seems. The discarded cars form artificial reefs that help support marine life. It’s a project that the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the subways, has been sponsoring for fifteen years now, sinking old subway cars in the Atlantic Ocean up and down the east coast. Between 2007 and 2010, photographer Stephen Mallonwas ableto document this most unnatural natural event.

The result, Next Stop Atlantic, is both stunning and brutal: the mighty metal cages New Yorkers ride in every day are no match for the indomitable sea.

Wave

(courtesy of Stephen Mallon and Front Room Gallery)

Surface

(courtesy of Stephen Mallon and Front Room Gallery)

Sink

(courtesy of Stephen Mallon and Front Room Gallery)

Mallondescribeshimself as a photographer of the industrial world; he sees beauty and wonder where most of us see only concrete and steel. His interest in trains is long-standing. “I have always been attached to these machines, their surreal beauty integrated into their functional engineering,” he says. “After being pushed and stacked like a sardine in these subways cars over the past decade, it is nice to see the sardine actually getting one of these as its new steel condo.”

Whether or not you’ve had that stacked-sardine experience, watching the subways transformed like thisis a thrilling experience.

On the Way

(courtesy of Stephen Mallon and Front Room Gallery)

Weeks 297

(courtesy of Stephen Mallon and Front Room Gallery)

Train in the Sky

(courtesy of Stephen Mallon and Front Room Gallery)

Don’t Do This

(courtesy of Stephen Mallon and Front Room Gallery)

Some of the photos from Next Stop Atlantic will be featured in an exhibition of Mallon’s work at theKimmel Galleries of New York University.