Miriam Blaustein regards a patchwork quilt of sticky notes that's turning an expanding stretch of Manhattan's Union Square subway station fluorescent.

Born and bred in Brooklyn ("BBB" is how this 66-year-old proudly identifies), Blaustein has deliberately deviated on her commute. She wants to see, first hand, this technicolour response to Donald Trump's election as US President.

Troubled profoundly by the result of the November 8 vote, Blaustein has been wondering whether she can continue living in her country of birth with a clear conscience.

While the simple answer is no, a protest move from the grand brownstone she has shared with her artist husband on the other side of the East River for almost 34 years isn't so straightforward.

Warm, smelly subway gusts cause the carpet of paper squares scrawled with handwritten raw election responses to flutter. Visible and audible, the rustling gives the impression the messages are alive - that the colourful squares are exchanging opinions. One detaches from the wall and disappears down the subterranean labyrinth.

Ylanna, born in Guyana but now a New Yorker, has stopped to see the mural she heard about on television news.

Silver, heart-shaped earrings pierce her lobes and a scarf patterned in yellows and greens that only look more brilliant against her midnight-black skin is wrapped around her head.

Ylanna's eyes jump from note to note.

"Be BRAVE #lovetrumpshate"

"What will be our legacy?"

"Spain says: Go away Mr Trump!"

"LET'S GET TO WORK"

"Love will always win"

"Putin's puppet"

"Be kind"

"Feels like 9/11 all over again"

"I'm ill about this"

Within the word tapestry there is also a simple, striking "Devastated".

"It's the first time I'm looking at it," Ylanna says of the month-old collage that has been photographed, filmed and read around the clock ever since Trump was declared President-elect.

The collage has been tracked back to a 28-year-old Californian creative arts graduate, Matthew "Levee" Chavez, whose nickname invokes a levee for "channelling meaningful conversations".

The day after the election Chavez woke up and felt compelled to take a table, chairs, pens and wads of sticky paper notes to a train station. He offered 'Subway Therapy' to anyone who was interested and for 12 hours – until 2am after election day – passersby wrote, spoke and stuck.

"This is the morning of November 9," Chavez reflected four weeks later.

"People are melting down. I wake up and I think 'people won't be able to talk to each other, I need to take writing materials to the subway so people can express themselves non violently in an inclusive space'. And people flooded.

"People were crying, people were upset, people were devastated, but they were supporting each other in a group. There was 50 to 100 people reading and expressing. People weren't talking to each other so much, but they were experiencing this group therapy; group catharsis."

Chavez, who describes himself as "not partisan" in terms of the election result – that's important, he says, so the wall does not exclude – spends time listening to people who want to talk as well as write notes.

Chavez was not even at Union Square that day but, manning a table at nearby 14th Street station with his pens and pads, he spoke on television news and to The New York Times, The Huffington Post and The Guardian about the sticky notes that spread like wildfire.

Chavez suspects people mistakenly thought he was based at Union Square, which is historically a site of protest in New York, and that this ultimately saw a satellite version spring to life a few blocks away. It has taken on a life of its own now.

Ylanna cranes her neck to inspect more messages.

How does the election result affect her?

"I don't know even know what to say," she says. "We've just got to see. I don't know."

She points to a note that catches her darting eyes and reads out loud: "In the most diverse city in the world we must lead starting by standing together."

I ask her about another square: "Donald Trump is a racist."

Does Ylanna think that's true?

"He's said a lot of stuff in this campaign," she replies. "If things get worse I just take my plane back home."