Painter and illustrator Reginald Marsh depicted this crowded subway scene, capturing the movement of passengers from various economic, social, and racial backgrounds in and out of the city center of Manhattan. New Lots, a neighborhood largely populated by Black and Puerto Rican families, was annexed in 1886 as a part of Brooklyn. By the early 1920s, Brooklyn was linked to Manhattan by the subway system. Despite the crowded composition, Marsh isolated the passengers from one another as they read or gaze away lost in their own thoughts, similar to riders one might see on public transportation today.