Riders on the B and Q Trains in Brooklyn may notice something unusual outside their subway car window, as a 30-year-old art installation has been restored. NY1's Transit reporter Bobby Cuza filed the following report.

When seen from the Q Train, images seem to leap out from the darkness of the subway tunnel - colorful, almost cartoon-like drawings that seem to move.

"It's very bright, it's very colorful and it's very dynamic in terms of its motion," said artist Bill Brand. "And it's kind of impossibly unlikely that that would be occurring outside your window."

Bill Brand is the artist who created this project, known as "Masstransiscope," back in 1980. It consists of a series of illuminated panels on an abandoned subway platform that was once the Myrtle Avenue station. Viewed through slits, the motion of the train makes the images appear to move, not unlike a children's flip book.

Over the years, the installation fell into disrepair and the panels became covered in graffiti. Then last year, Brand and some volunteers went through a meticulous process of cleaning and restoring the panels.

"It was tricky to clean. There was about 20 or 30 layers of graffiti completely covering the paintings. You couldn't see the paintings at all. I had no idea if the paintings were even recoverable," said Brand.

Turns out, they were, and in November the project came back to life.

To see the Masstransiscope, catch a Manhattan-bound B or Q train. You'll see it outside the right side of the car just after leaving DeKalb Avenue, but before you reach the Manhattan Bridge."

Similar technology has been used on other systems to project advertisements on tunnel walls, something New York City Transit will try this year on the 42nd Street shuttle. As for the art, Brand acknowledges not everyone on the train even notices.

"Mostly people are busy doing other things. They're texting on their cell phone, or they're reading a book or the newspaper, or they're just daydreaming and out of the corner of their eye they see this thing and they wonder did this really happen," said Brand. "Or if they're regular commuters, they discover it and they look for it, and that's the way I imagined it when I designed it."

With the MTA now committed to maintaining the project, the hope is that it will remain to be discovered by another generation.