'Subway Therapy,' wall that became a New York phenom, to be a book

The thousands of colorful sticky notes that became a mass cri de coeur in the New York City subway system after the presidential election will now make their way into a book.

The publisher Bloomsbury tells Paste BN in an exclusive announcement that it has acquired rights to Subway Therapy by artist Matthew “Levee” Chavez in a two-book deal. Subway Therapy will be published in October 2017.

The project grew out of Chavez (Levee is his artistic moniker) providing Post-its to subway riders who wanted to express their feelings after the contentious election.

The original location was in the bypass tunnel between the 6th Avenue L train and the 14th Street 1-2-3 line. The project spread to the Union Square station, where a wall quickly became a visual mosaic filled with countless messages.

Widely covered in the media, the Union Station wall is now a memory — the notes were removed on Dec. 16. But they’ll be remembered in Chavez’s book. Many were preserved for the New-York Historical Society.

The “Subway Therapy” craze has moved on to other cities, including San Francisco, Oakland, Boston and Washington, D.C.

The second Chavez book, as yet untitled and without a publication date, will be published by Bloomsbury’s children’s division.

“I started this project to help people feel less stress and connect with their community,” Chavez said in a release. “It is my hope that these books will inspire people to explore new pathways of expression and understanding.”