“Wet Paint” signs like the one shown above are a common sight on New York City subway platforms. Maintenance crews periodically repaint the metal pillars on the platforms and then add the signs to warn commuters not to lean on the pillars. The signs, which the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) prints at its own in-house sign shop, always feature red lettering on a white background. They’ve become part of the city’s inconspicu-verse — omnipresent but unremarkable.
Or so it would appear at first glance. Sometimes, however, the signs are deployed a bit differently, as shown in this next photo, which I recently took at my local subway station: