You are currently browsing stories tagged with “Transportation.”
I'd written down the wrong rotation number and reported to LaGuardia instead of Kennedy. Easy mistake for a new flight attendant: Rotation 1010 – LGA to Kansas City. Rotation 1001 – JFK to Madrid. Rotation 1010 meant the Kansas City Best Western, watered-down orange juice at Waffle House, and no in-room movies. Rotation 1001 meant a 48-hour layover of tapas, [...]
It’s 12 degrees outside and I am standing at the corner of Flatbush and Glenwood Avenues waiting for the bus. It’s dark already on this gloomy January day and the wind gusts feel like razor blades on my face. There are about fifty other people waiting at the bus stop. We are all weighted down with winter gear – coats, [...]
The Segway first appeared in front of the B-61 bus stop on Bedford Avenue in Williamsburg about a month and a half ago. Riding it was a short, thin lad sporting an uneven bowl cut. He looked about fifteen, as though he might have torn himself away from a Dungeons & Dragons game, swung by the barber shop, picked up [...]
One day I was on the M60 bus going across 125th Street. It was a nice bright sunny day. There were lots of people who had just came from shopping, from all the stores on 125th Street. I was with my friend and my little sister, who is four. My little sister’s name is Maya. She is in Pre- K [...]
As far back as seventh grade, when I got grounded for talking back to my dad and couldn't go to my best friend Kirsten's party--where her mom was going to give us a little champagne up front and her older brother was going to hide a bottle of vodka for us in the basement bathroom--New Year's Eve has sucked. (more…)
Pregnant and nauseous, I slid over and rolled down the window. Risa and I had gotten into a cab that smelled of cherry-scented cleaning fluid. I rolled the window fully open and a big fat raindrop splashed me on the forehead. It was one of those wet November days, too dark for normal. At home, we had to turn on [...]
Today, I walk the stairs up to the elevated platform, ready to join 3.5 million of my closest friends on the subway. Just a few days before a possible transit workers strike was to have happened. Being unable to get into Manhattan would have hurt my wallet but, I remind myself, there are bigger issues at stake. The N train [...]
"Seats are left," the man assures me over the phone, "but please, hurry, hurry." Sunshine Travel Tours won't take reservations but he provides me with directions to the agency in Chinatown. A frequent traveler to Boston, I was happy to see the ad in the Village Voice offering one way tickets for $15 compared to the Greyhound/Trailways $40 seat. Once [...]
Everyone has bad days. But for some souls fate comes down hard and fast and delivers a load of bad luck so rotten that the events of that person's life from that point on have to be filed into two categories: before the bad day and after. Around dinnertime on a still, muggy June evening, not far from the arched [...]
There were no rollerblades in those days. We wore our roller skates on our shoes. The skates had straps that buckled across the instep -- clamps, also referred to as "clams," that we tightened with the all-important skate key we wore on a string around our necks. The wheels themselves were ball bearings; in fact, we referred to our skates [...]
I met Marty between Fourteenth and Forty-second Streets after having waited most of my ride for a seat to free up. One finally did, next to him. "Is this Fourteenth Street?" he asked as soon as I sat down, ignoring the fact that I was deeply engrossed in the Metro section. I replied that it was. He then continued as [...]
Ever since my first wooshing ride down a log flume, I’ve been enamored of water. From sprinklers to swimming pools to lakes and the Atlantic,water soothes me like no other substance. Except beer. So when I heard the Staten Island ferry served cold brew on its cross-bay excursions, I knew I’d found my manna. A Friday night was chosen. That [...]
You could easily have walked right past her. An attractive young woman, about twenty-five years old, sitting quietly on the half-full subway car. Her hair was done, her make-up expertly applied. She sported dangly earrings and a jaunty scarf knotted above a new leather jacket. Nothing unusual about her. Except for the pants -- or more precisely, the absence of [...]
Peggy Darlington has always loved the New York City subway. As a little girl, she rode the trains frequently, and when she wasn’t on a train, she played “train” in her bedroom. One day, Darlington’s parents ordered her to play with dolls. After finding that she had put the dolls on pieces of cardboard to shuttle them around, they finally [...]
I do not generally travel by limousine. When the long sleek cars drive by in the mad tangle of traffic I peer curiously at the tinted windows with the rest of the masses, hoping for an elusive glimpse of fame and wealth, Madonna going to the Grammy’s perhaps, or Bono on his way to his Upper East Side apartment. They [...]
The subway station at 53rd Street and Fifth Avenue is among the most heavily trafficked and congested places in New York. Watching people elbow each other for position on the platform during rush hour is like watching two NBA centers do battle in the paint. It's hot, the air is thick, and you can tell by scanning the crowd that [...]
The city issued the “gridlock alert” days as far back as November and Mayor Giuliani encouraged all of us to utilize mass transit. At the same time, he gave cryptic warnings of "zero tolerance" for all motor vehicle violations... So it’s December 21, the last full weekday before Christmas Eve, as well as one of the aforementioned gridlock alert days. [...]
I often walk down the asphalt path that runs the length of Manhattan, on the shore of the Hudson River, hoping to see Diana. When I was with her things were not so pleasant. She smelled awful, and she sapped my energy, working me all night long and half the day. For the fourteen weeks we were together, I had [...]
The brass-plated elevator door opens, revealing it's operator, a man named Kenny Coleman. A horde of cops, assistant district attorneys, and clerical workers bustle inside as if they're heading to a sale at Macy's rather than for work at the state court building at 80 Centre St. In his mid-40s, thin-faced and short, and wearing a fedora, a Western string [...]
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