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I was in Manhattan today and stumbled on a sweet tribute to Aretha Franklin in a subway station.
Aretha Franklin died today, and the way that news took over my social media feeds was amazing. It’s rare that I see so many people come together like that on Twitter and Facebook. There was no shade, only love and sorrow and remembrances.
I was running errands around Manhattan when I heard the news, and soon after found myself at the Franklin Street subway stop on the 1 line, a station I’m basically never at. Recognizing the serendipity, I took a picture of one of the big “Franklin St.” mosaics on the wall.
As I was leaving the station, though, I spotted this:
Aww, I thought, that’s really sweet, and sad. But then I thought wait a sec, the news about her passing has only been out for a couple of hours, did somebody really have that ready to go just in case? Or is that an ongoing thing in this particular subway station? So I started googling. It looks like tributes started going up a couple days ago, when the word spread that Franklin was in hospice care. The signs on the stairs were the only ones I’d noticed. I went into a couple other nearby entrances, both uptown and downtown, and didn’t see anything else.
I hope the MTA leaves that one up. It’s a sweet reminder.