You are currently browsing stories tagged with “On the Subway.”
After my daughter was born, I spent part of each day on the balcony of our third-floor apartment in Sheepshead Bay, rocking her in her stroller. Even when chilly, we’d sit out. Just like her mama and papa when they were little in St. Petersburg, Russia, Sasha has spent much of her first year wrapped in blankets on the balcony. [...]
Thus spoke the Redhead Complainer: "So I told him to get his own goddamned dinner." This vivacious female who rides the N train with me regularly once appeared intriguing--that is, until I finally heard her speak. And that only happened a few weeks ago, when the subway car was particularly bustling and my fatigued frame conveniently happened to be jammed [...]
When I take the subway I like to stand in the front car and look out the window. The window is long and narrow and through it I begin to watch the moving narrative of traveling through the underground on my way to wherever it is I want to go. I must keep my balance standing or else sit with [...]
I can't help but think about The O'Jays when I ride the C train. And not just because I used to commute back and forth from my boyfriend's place on 105th and Manhattan to my studio on Suffolk and Houston. The C train officially became the Love Train one day four years ago somewhere between Manhattan Valley and the Lower [...]
On my way down the steps I was stuck behind a man with a cane, so I missed the D train. In my head I said, "Curses," then clarified out loud, "Not you," to the guy with the cane. He had enough problems. I didn't think the next train would be long, though, because it wasn't late and it was [...]
There is no commuter more unqualified to weigh in on the effects of the transit strike than a cyclist who lives and works in Manhattan - which is me. I have been riding a bicycle in the city for the last 12 years and have become so reliant (addicted might be a better word) on it as my means of [...]
Luck was on my side. The "Q" train pulled into the 34th Street station headed to Brooklyn. I was relieved, not just because I would be whisked home by the air conditioned subway train. It meant that I wouldn't have to stand on one of the hottest subway platforms in the city, forced to breathe a particular stench that I [...]
It happened on an unseasonably mild February night around 9:30 between 23rd and Christopher Streets on the No. 1 train: I fell in love all over again on the New York City subway. I was on my way home from seeing a movie alone in Times Square, a depressing Oscar-nominated flick about a woman stuck in a vicious cycle of [...]
I was riding downtown on a 1 train after basketball with two of the players from the game, Nick and Tom. Tom and I are both 6-6 and had spent the previous ninety minutes beating the crap out of each other on the basketball court. We were much like the fox and the sheepdog in those great old Warner Brothers [...]
In a city that purportedly never sleeps (but does take frequent disco naps), there is a population of workers who must keep the place running while most inhabitants are in fact snoozing. Our commute begins as most are bedding down with Letterman or curling into a vodka-drenched stranger. We are the skeleton crew operating the machine while the rest of [...]
The thought that we were doing something illegal had not crossed my mind. I was simply doing a little act of kindness for this man - let’s call him Joe - who was looking so forlorn on a hot July morning, standing beside the turnstyles. A bad Metrocard swipe had gotten him a "Just Used" message, and so I offered [...]
I stepped into the crowded subway car and a little girl sitting next to the door yelled something at me. "Hey Mister..." I shot her a look that said: "I don't know if I'm going to pay attention to you, but at least let me claim my standing spot and my pole before I decide." But then my hand met [...]
My mass transit had misplaced its insanity. The B48 bus driver obeyed traffic signals. The one-legged beggar banking on his one-leggedness vanished. Even the angry accordion player took a sabbatical. My chunky-monkey commute was now old-fashioned vanilla. But vanilla was what I craved. It was another day answering phones for a tri-monikered firm. The job was painless when the company [...]
One American flag pin is not enough for the woman across the aisle from me on the L train to Brooklyn. She wears one on her lapel, one on her coat, one on the front of her Le Sportsac bag. All are bejeweled. Her eyes are closed; her head falls to the side. She has blonde hair, blonder highlights. She [...]
Your books were a little bit strange, and that ended up working in your favor since none of us wanted them at first glance. Stuff about yoga and spiritual exercise, something about linguistics, and a medieval text. There were five of them in the bag, complete with your credit card receipt from the Barnes & Noble, with a couple of [...]
Wonders of Modern Commuting, Part 1: At around 8:25 every day, Mr. Impatient’s train pulls up to the Greenpoint platform. Mr. Impatient is a G(1) train conductor who is always in a very big hurry to get the train where it’s going. I have yet to get a glimpse of him, but I can hear him, and from the anxiously [...]
Blind Accordion Player Guy Who Bumps into Poles on Purpose, Angry Mute Midget, Classical Opera Whistler Dude, Man Who Imitates The Sound of Closing Doors, and Dirty Shoeless Guy Dressed in Rags That Crawls on the Floor. Each of these beggars (should I say Entrepreneurs?) preys on different emotions. For Blind Accordion, it’s sympathy--he’s driven to play accordion to “try [...]
I moved to New York City, a naïve T passenger from Boston, in October 2000. In line with its puritanical ways, the Boston subway system, better known as the T, was all color-coded simplicity. The subway map could be masterfully replicated by any seven-year old armed with four crayons-red, orange, blue, and green, each line appropriately named by its respective [...]
I step onto the 1 downtown train at 116th street every day and usually stand all the way down to Houston Street, where I get off for work. Sometimes I am able to balance and read a book as I hold on to a greasy pole. Other times, I am not so lucky; at five foot one, the long horizontal [...]
The A train rattles through the tunnel underneath the East River. It’s late on a Sunday night and the train is not very crowded. About ten customers are spaced equidistant on the seats. They stare up at the ceiling or down at the their feet. Doors at the end of the car click and slide open. A woman shuffles quickly [...]
Just short of the 96th street station the kid next to me started to get really agitated. He was digging around frantically in his pockets for a pen, and since I was sitting next to him he kept pushing and bumping me with his shifting. He finally found his pen in his pocket, but he didn't have anything to write [...]
Williamsburg residents Will Becton and Stephen Hoban spent much of November, 2001, riding the New York City subway system, recording the many ways in which other New Yorkers have chosen to deface the Britney Spears posters that for nearly a month were ubiquitous on subway platforms. In their first five outings, Stephen and Will collected numerous examples of defaced posters. [...]
I'm on a jam-packed rush hour 4 train headed to Brooklyn and am lucky enough to get a seat. I'm reading my book and the guy next to me says, "Is that your bag?" and points under the seats. I look down and see a large, square-shaped canvas bag. "No," I say. So he asks the lady next to him, [...]
When I hear about the plane crash in Queens, all I can think is, "I can't believe no one's talking about it." Then, after sunset, I'm thinking, "God, it's clear out tonight. Look at these stars." Our season of caring seems to be over. Later, at 3 a.m., I'm at 145th Street, waiting for the 1/9 train. There's a guy [...]
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