Jorge Colombo's sketches (created entirely on his iPhone or iPad) have a dreamy, murky, painterly quality that belies their essentially tech-y nature. It’s fitting, then, that since appearing on 20x200 he’s contributed work to a variety of NYC publications, including regular contributions to the New Yorker. Kind of like the city itself, Colombo’s work manages to be simultaneously old-fashioned and cutting-edge; futuristic images that still feel romantic and somewhat ephemeral.

Untitled by Jorge Colombo for The New York Times

Today in the New York Times Opinion pages, his work pays perfect complement to Tom Scocca and Choire Sicha’s homage to the imperfect perfection of New York’s Penn Station. Although impressive when it was first constructed, the massive bus-subway-Long Island Railroad depot has come to be regarded as one of the city’s less exalted transportation options. As the New York Times writes:

The city beneath our city is a delightfully ill-lighted, incomprehensibly organized, low-ceilinged, viewless labyrinth. Harried people surge through its concourses and tunnels in perpendicular lines, mean salmon in puffy coats going always upstream. Soldiers with combat weapons lurk outside the city’s most unhygienic group lavatories. There is nowhere to sit. The “talking kiosk” that serves the visually impaired has been heckling Long Island Rail Road customers with chirping for so long that we have begun to associate birdsong with the most terrible things.

Penn Station is now slated to undergo a huge expansion/renovation project, which city planners hope will make it more modern and user-friendly—more in line with how present-day New York sees itself. Nonetheless, it’s the view of the authors that the beauty of the station lies in its unglamorous, chaotic utilitarianism. After all, as the authors point out, “Why should you be forced through a grand entrance and into a mob of thousands of people on the floor of a great hall, if all you desire is the 7:49 to Flushing?”

The contradictions of New York, which Jorge Colombo expresses so beautifully in his work, are part of what make the city so fascinating, whether you’re a lifelong resident or just passing through Penn Station. Take a moment to read the full Op-Ed here, and check out 20x200 for some great art inspired by cities, including more editions from Jorge Colombo.