Bruce Gelb at the L train staircase corridor!

This is one of those subway stories I’ll never forget.

I was posted up in the L train staircase corridor doing what I used to do best: running the platform like an office, a studio, a gallery, a booth, a hustle.  People moving in every direction, trains breathing in & out, footsteps overhead like rain.

Then Dr. Bruce Gelb from NYU Langone came through.

He stopped, we talked, he connected with the art… then he did something wild: he loaded up on New York City Arteries for his whole transplant team. Not one, not two, but for the whole crew.

That hit me hard.

Because when you name a piece New York City Arteries, you’re talking about the subway system like a living body. The city as a heart. Trains as blood flow. People as oxygen. A full organism that never sleeps.

But for a transplant surgeon, arteries aren’t just symbolism. It’s real life. It’s precision. It’s time-sensitive. It’s high stakes. It’s saving somebody’s future.

So to see someone who operates in that exact world pull the art out of the chaos of the subway & bring it back to the people doing that work every day… that’s beyond support. That’s one of the cleanest full-circle moments ever.

Legendary salute to Dr. Gelb & the entire NYU Langone transplant team.

Meet Transplant Surgeon Dr. Bruce Gelb