Sadly, the new South Ferry station—you know, the one that was basically destroyed during Hurricane Sandy—was home to an incredible tile piece that’s no longer able to be viewed by the public. In the old South Ferry station, however, there’s some incredible—if less monumental—tile to be found, in the form oh ceramic ships that were the work of subway architects George Heins and Christopher LaFarge.

Okay, this one’s a bit of a cheat, since you can only access the station on tours led by the New York Transit Museum. But the old City Hall subway stop, closed since 1945, was arguably the prettiest subway station of its time—thanks, in large part, to the tile work by Rafael Guastavino. But those exiting the current Brooklyn Bridge-City Hall station can still get a peek at the Spanish master’s handiwork: the open plaza near the entrance to the Manhattan Municipal Building is covered by an atrium that features an undulating Guastavino ceiling.

The Bleecker Street 6 station is part of the original IRT line that opened in 1904, and the tile work shows its age: Heins and LaFarge, the architects of the stops along that line, commissioned the ceramicists at the Grueby Faience Company to create Beaux Arts-inspired signage for the station, including the rich blue station marker seen here. When the station was refurbished in 2012, the lovely tile work was, thankfully, preserved.

If Heins and LaFarge gave the original subway stations their distinctive, ornate ornamentation, Squire Vickers is the man who gave much of today’s system the more simplified look we now know. In the nearly 40 years that he worked on the NYC subway system, he oversaw more than 300 stations, working with a tight budget and ensuring the tile work was color-coordinated by line and easy to clean. But simple doesn’t necessarily mean bland: the work produced under Vickers, like the tiles in this station, often have intricate patterns and lovely color pairings.

We won’t pretend like traveling through the Herald Square subway station is anything but unpleasant. But for tile fans, there’s one reason to stop and stare: Michele Oka Doner's 1991 installation Radiant Site, made up of more than 10,000 hand-fashioned, gilded tiles. Doner crafted the tiles at Detroit’s historic Pewabic Pottery, and according to the artist, the piece is intended to provide New Yorkers with “a moment of reflection, a light to soothe not only the eye but the mind of all travelers.” (Something to consider the next time you’re running to catch the F train.)

One of the subway system’s newest art pieces is Xenobia Bailey’s Funktional Vibrations, two gorgeous mosaics made of glass tile in the new Hudson Yards subway station. (A third will eventually be installed in a new subway entrance, whose opening date is still a couple of years off.) To create the piece, Bailey first rendered the glorious murals—rich with color and intricately patterned—in crochet, then worked with Miotto Mosaic Art Studio to bring the pieces to live.

What better way to mark the subway stop beneath the American Museum of Natural History than with an animal-inspired work of art? The mural, titled For Want of a Nail, uses a whole host of materials—bronze and granite tiles, glass mosaics, and ceramic relief tiles among them—to evoke the various flora and fauna that visitors to the museum might encounter. One end of the station has an underwater scene; in another, elephants (and their wooly mammoth predecessors) are frolicking on a wall.

Chuck Close is just one of the acclaimed artists who’ve contributed to the MTA’s Arts for Transit program; his work, “Subway Portraits,” was installed in the new 86th Street station along the Second Avenue subway. His 12 portraits—including a couple of self-portraits, pictured here, along with ones of artists like Lou Reed, Kara Walker, and Cindy Sherman—are rendered in intricate, and wildly different, mosaics. Some, like Reed’s, are more photorealistic; others, like of Close’s images of himself, have a colorful, surrealistic feel. But they’re all worth a peek.

Also part of the Second Avenue subway’s art collection is Sarah Sze’s “Blueprint for a Landscape,” an approximately 14,000-square-foot installation that’s made from nearly 4,300 porcelain tiles. The piece covers many of the walls of the 96th Street station, and though its massive scale is impressive, so too is the delicacy of the patterns, depicting sheets of paper in the wind, birds in flight, and other elements of city life. Sze has been working on the piece for a decade, and worked with tile experts in Spain to create the porcelain that makes up the installtion.

At first glance, you might not even notice that there’s any variation in the tile at the Dyckman Street subway station. But that was artist Wopo Holup’s clever plan: She created the bird-like shapes out of ceramic so they blend into the normal subway tile, offering a subtle reminder of the natural world outside of the station. Holup also crafted a new addition to the station, “Moon View”; together, the two tile pieces “emphasize[] nature and the vastness of the universe,” per the artist.

We wouldn’t blame you if stopping to stare at this mural within the Bedford Park Blvd station made you miss your 4 train. Andrea Dezsö’s piece, “Community Garden,” is a sumptuous mosaic creation using thousands of pieces of colored tile. Dezsö’s work often features nature, and this is no different, though it’s likely more vibrant than the gardens above-ground.

The title of Soonae Tark’s Arts for Transit piece, found inside the Buhre Avenue station in the Bronx, is simple: “Have a Happy Day.” And it’s impossible not to—the geometric shapes, rendered in colorful glass tile (courtesy of Miotto Mosaic Art Studio), are meant to “inspire commuters and the people of the neighborhood with positive energy and uplifting feelings,” according to the MTA. Mission accomplished.

The art within the Eastern Parkway subway stop reflects the institution that bears its name: MTA’s Arts for Transit collaborated with the Brooklyn Museum to bring a bit of its collection underground. Each of the pieces found in the station comes from a demolished building. Tile comes in for the framing; each piece is surrounded by a mosaic of rich blues, with gold tile evoking the feel of a gilded frame you’d find in a museum.

Artist Susan Tunick drew inspiration from nearby Prospect Park for her subway mosaic installation, which features many varieties of flora rendered in ceramics. While not necessarily made from tile per se, the installation complements the surrounding station tile in both color and in style. Tunick was inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement, which was in vogue when this particular station was being constructed.

The art within the Avenue M station in Midwood is something of an optical illusion, with the typical subway tile rendered in shapes that make it appear as though it’s being pulled away from a wall. Once again working with Miotto Mosaic Art Studios, artist Rita MacDonald conceived a piece that incorporates neutral subway tile and vibrant glass mosaics, to lovely effect. A similar piece can be found in the Avenue J station, too.