David Bowie lives on in many ways and in many places, but at the moment, his presence feels particularly acute while passing through the Broadway-Lafayette Station of New York City’s subway system. The music legend has completely taken over, from lenticular portraits looming over the heads of commuters to posters replacing the typical advertisements and even keepsake Bowie-themed MetroCards. He might have been from London, but Manhattan was Bowie’s home, and Spotify is celebrating that fact with an immersive exhibition acting as an extension of the ‘David Bowie is’ show over at the Brooklyn Museum.

Much of the work seen in the station is Bowie-inspired art, including fan art and reproductions of the pieces on display at the museum. Each piece is paired with a statement of Bowie’s that reflects his love for New York City and how it affected his work.

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“The intricate details that make up the subway takeover speak to key moments in Bowie’s New York City history, many of which were in the neighborhood surrounding Broadway-Lafayette, where he spent over two decades,” says Spotify of the project. “From legendary concerts at Carnegie Hall to recording sessions at studios like Electric Lady and the Magic Shop, the takeover beautifully explores how the City impacted the artist, and speaks to visitors about the truly unforgettable mark of New Yorker David Bowie.”

The David Bowie Subway Takeover went up in April and will be in place through this weekend, so if you’re in the area and haven’t seen it yet, be sure to check it out. If you can’t see it in person, experience it vicariously through the social media hashtag #davidbowieishere.

Subway cars in Taipei have become swimming pools, basketball courts, baseball fields and track lanes to get residents amped for the upcoming 2017 Summer Universiade, an international multi-sport event for university athletes. While the installations mostly consist of photorealistic photographic murals stuck onto the floors, the illusion comes together pretty nicely, especially in the case of the swimming pool, which matches the existing subway car chairs and poles.

These ‘moving sporting venues’ will transport lots of tourists attending the events, and the city hopes to add to their excitement. The Universiade is the second-largest international sporting event after the Olympics, set to begin on August 19th and end on August 30th, and will include competitions in 22 different sports across 70 venues.

Images by: Taipei City Government Department of Information and Tourism, @skywu0326, @chi._.851229, @nikoleko1007

The same ad spaces that shouted about insurance and laundry detergent last week now contain nothing but fluffy cats, as an art collective uses the internet’s number-one obsession to temporarily transform the London Tube system. The Citizens Advertising Takeover Service (CATS) is the result of a Kickstarter campaign by brand-new collective Glimpse aiming to “create a rip in the space time continuum.”

The group raised enough money to buy all of the ad spaces in the Clapham Common station – a total of 68 – for a two-week period, and the new posters feature cats from the Battersea Dogs and Cats Home and the Cats Protection charity. The organizers are careful to note that they’re not against advertising per se, but rather hope that the project will “inspire people to think differently about the world and realize they have the power to change it.”

But the broader point – and appeal – of CATS is the citizen takeover of public spaces, with everyday people getting to decide what they want to look at as they navigate their cities. Wouldn’t you rather be surrounded by what essentially functions as an ad for animal rescue services than dozens of posters pushing a bunch of junk corporations want you to purchase?

“Back in February we asked ourselves to ‘imagine a world where friends and experiences were more valuable than stuff you can buy,’” says Glimpse founder James Turner in a post on Medium. “The team began thinking about crowdfunding to replace Tube adverts with something else. Beautiful forests? Time spent with family? Hmmm. We wanted this to become famous, so we needed something the internet would love. Frame it that way and the answer’s obvious. Cats.”

“We’ve been on the news in China, and one of our backers is flying in from America to see his cat in one of the final posters. This project has uncorked a kind of energy that I haven’t experienced before. When you talk about CATS, eyes light up and new ideas start to flow. We don’t know exactly how Glimpse is going to work, but we want to carry this energy with us as we grow up.”

Far from the stereotype of a dark and grungy underground space where you don’t want to touch anything with your bare hands, these 15 standout subway stations are practically art galleries. From the gilded Baroque metros of Moscow to the world’s largest glass dome in Taiwan, these transit stations are worth a stop just to take a look around.

Drassanes, Barcelona

An old subway station in Barcelona, built in 1968, was covered with new surfaces to create an entirely new look, with black resin floors and lightweight white glass-reinforced concrete over the walls. The result is bright and clean with pops of color and a much more updated feel.

Radhuset, Stockholm

Stockholm boasts an incredible 90 decorated subway stations, each of which bearing its own unique visual identity. This one, Radhuset (courthouse) was built in 1975, and resembles a bright red cavern.

Westfriedhof, Munich

The dramatic Westfriedhof station in Munich, Germany features eleven large lamps that cast colored lights onto various areas of the platform. The ceiling and walls are just barely illuminated in a deep, dark blue.

Komsomolskaya, Moscow

The busiest transport hub on the Moscow metro is a showcase of Stalinist architecture, with a palatial Baroque theme in bright yellow. It’s one of the most luxurious subway stations in the world, with marble columns, murals and massive chandeliers.

Toledo, Naples, Italy

The stunning Crater of Luz by Oscar Tusquet Blanca is the centerpiece of the Toledo station in Naples, Italy – one of the most art-filled subway lines in the world. The Naples metro features 13 ‘Art Stations’  that aim to give everyone a close-up look at prime examples of contemporary art.

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It’s “an elusive pirate treasure of contemporary art” – an abandoned subway chamber under Manhattan that was illegally opened for a year starting in 2009 to allow 103 select artists to paint for one night each. Then it was sealed off from the world, the original entrance to the station removed. The Underbelly Project is a mysterious urban art experiment that seeks to subvert the commercialism that has overtaken much of the street art scene. Contributors include RJ, Editor-in-Chief of Vandalog, who has captured some of these creations on film (such as the one above and the second-to-last image below).

According to The New York Times, “many of the contributors are significant figures in both the street art world and the commercial trade that now revolves around it.” The show’s curators, who call themselves Workhorse and PAC, wanted to get as far from the conventional art world as possible. They explained their motivation to a reporter at The Sunday Times:

“People were going out and literally sawing walls in half to steal Banksy pieces. Electrical panels were being ripped off leaving live wires exposed that had Shepard Fairey stencils on them. It was commercialism at its worst. Early in the street-art years, I relished the ability to feel like I was my own island. The Underbelly was our way of feeling like we were an island again. We finally had a space in the world that collectors couldn’t contaminate. A space that couldn’t be bought.”

The artists worked for four hours each by candle lanterns, and weren’t allowed in and out to retrieve more supplies due to the danger of getting caught, which could result in serious criminal charges. The art itself has been generally well received, but commenters at Gothamist reveal that it may already be gone, claiming that other New York street artists have entered the station and destroyed the work.

Whether left as a secret treasure for later generations to discover or ultimately ephemeral due to vandalism and decay, the Underbelly Project is certainly intriguing with its shadowy combination of urban exploration, abandoned spaces, secrecy and incredible works of art. Check out a full gallery at Gothamist and see more on the project at Vandalog’s Underbelly Project Tag.