Riders at this station are treated to the joyous burst of color and shapes that is “Blooming.” The mosaics defy the corners of the space as the imagery wraps around corners, down steps, and through doorways. 

“Blooming” takes its title from Bloomingdale's, located above the station upstairs. The artist views the subway as a "dreamy underworld" and also a place to wake up, and her pink trees, red shoes and yellow mugs with steaming coffee succeed in gaining the viewers' attention. Murray says, "I added the stepping shoes and steaming coffee cups, part of the ritual of every morning or evening subway trip." The images are intended to "stimulate thoughts about passage, as does the poetry" that is incorporated into the mural, lines from William Butler Yeats's, "In dreams begin responsibility," Gwendolyn Brooks's "Conduct your blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind."

Elizabeth Murray (1940 - 2007) was born in in Chicago and earned a BFA from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1962 and an MFA from Mills College, Oakland in 1964. She then moved to New York, where she developed her artistic style. Murray’s work has been the subject of nearly sixty solo exhibitions in museums and galleries around the world. She participated in six Whitney Biennial exhibitions since 1973. A comprehensive exhibition of Murray's work was presented at the Museum of Modern Art in 2005, making her the fifth by a woman in the history of the Department of Painting and Sculpture. Murray received numerous awards for her work, including the Skowhegan Medal in Painting in 1986 and a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award in 1999. In addition to her teaching position at Bard College, Murray held visiting faculty appointments at several American colleges and universities throughout her career. Elizabeth Murray’s work can be found in over forty public collections in the United States. The Estate of Elizabeth Murray is represented by Gladstone Gallery, New York.