Chambers Street subway stop

These eyes that follow me to the exit when I get out of the A train at Chambers Street remind me every time of the eyes on the cover of the first edition of The Great Gatsby. And here’s what Hemingway had to say about that:

It had a garish dust jacket and I remember being embarrassed by the violence, bad taste and slippery look of it. It looked the book jacket for a book of bad science fiction. Scott told me not to be put off by it, that it had to do with a billboard along a highway in Long Island that was important to the story. He said he had liked the jacket and now didn’t like it. I took it off to read the book.

[from the restored edition of A Moveable Feast]