DeSciNYC: What Are We Breathing on the NYC Subway?
This presentation traces a 1.5-year investigation into subway station heat, beginning with a few TikTok videos in the summer of 2024 pointing a digital thermometer at the walls of 14 St–Union Square. It follows the evolution of the project through the installation of a guerrilla sensor network across high-traffic Manhattan subway stations in the summer of 2025, producing one of the first comprehensive datasets on underground station temperatures, and culminates (for now) with an unsuccessful effort to establish a data partnership with the MTA in April 2026. From there, Jack expands the conversation beyond subway heat to ask a broader question: when you have no formal authority and no seat at the table, what can an ordinary person do to meaningfully influence the future of their city?
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Jack Klein is an artist and independent researcher interested in challenging assumptions about what our subway system can look like. He is currently fixated on getting trees into subway stations, finding ways to push back against the proliferation of digital advertising in the subway system, and exploring realistic solutions to the public health issue of summer subway station heat.