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October 27, 2004
Happy Birthday Subway System: Now Get Me to Work on Time
Happy Birthday, dear NYC subway system. I do love you so. I am enamored by your beautiful abandoned stations, your wondrous layers of tracks and tunnels. I rely on you daily, and you deliver. Most of the time.
I know that birthdays are not the forum for complaint; however, I am going to take a moment, like any true New Yorker might, to divorce your beauty from the system that runs you, and do it anyway.
- It's all great that the city cleaned up an old car and will send the mayor et al on a nostalgia trip through one of the most beautiful abandoned stations-- City Hall. It has always been a dream of mine to see City Hall Station up close...and um...legally.
I do hope that while the mayor and his poo-bahs are celebrating your existence in that nice, newly cleaned car, they might take some time to think about the other stations that are stank, dank, and miserable. You know, the stations that people actually use. Maybe they could clean those, too.
- The NYTimes has a nice little piece today entitled A Day in the Subway. Apparently, Randy Kennedy (one of my favorite documenters of subway stories, btw) ceased research on the F line before 6:30 p.m. It took me nearly two hours to get home last night from 14th Street to 7th Avenue. The transit workers on the 16th Street end of the station told me that there was no F service. The transit workers on the 14th Street end told me that there was.
Bottom line: I love you, subway system, but could you get me home on time? Or at least within a two-hour time frame? Why is it that I can drive to Massachusetts in two hours but cannot get to Brooklyn?
- Lastly, on your great centennial, fair subway system, I wish you the best. I ride your rails too frequently to cite and have no problem coughing up cash to keep you safe, up to date and clean. It seems, however, that your keepers cannot keep up. Could you kick some sense into them? Because their kicking my ass with a proposed $80 monthly commute.
Happy Birthday NYC Subway System! I look forward to being stuck between your stations tonight on my way home.
But in all seriousness, you are one of my favorite things about New York, despite the frustrations-- definitely our city's arteries, quite possibly its soul.
Historical Blurb Source:
[Our Subway Open, 150,000 Try It. New York Times (1857-Current file), Oct 28, 1904; ProQuest Historical Newspapers The New York Times pg.1.]
Posted by callalillie at October 27, 2004 8:17 AM | City Life
well said. happy birthday indeed.
once, i nearly got off at the 21st van alst stop when i thought it was court square. and another time, we had to wait there as the train was skipping the stop or something and it is one nasty station.
Posted by: tien at October 27, 2004 9:38 AM
the outside platform lights were out at the 4th ave. station for about month before they were replaced. talk about dark and dank. i'm surprised no one tripped and fell off the platform.
Posted by: corie at October 27, 2004 9:40 AM
over the weekend, i took the g train at night from nassau ave. (say around 9:40) and the lights in the stairwell were shattered by someone. no light, except from the street and the platform. i thought i was going to get killed or gnawed to death by rats. there are always rats at that end of the station because they put all the garbage there.
Posted by: tien at October 27, 2004 9:49 AM
it's really amazing to see the contrast between stations. i know it takes a ton of $ and time to renovate...but there are little things like light bulbs and brooms that can make a big difference.
Posted by: corie at October 27, 2004 1:54 PM
oh, the bulbs were replaced by the next day.
and i'm torn, while i can afford to pay for increases in fare, i know it's bad. but capital spending is good for my company.
Posted by: tien at October 27, 2004 1:58 PM
City Hall station is open to the public today until 4pm. Not announced in advance, alas.
Posted by: Mike at October 27, 2004 2:46 PM
I had a feeling it would be. Convenient that it's open smack in the middle of the workday.
Posted by: corie at October 27, 2004 2:53 PM
Rats! I wanted to go there. I thinking of impersonating a dignitary and trying to get in tonight, but that would require a haircut.
Posted by: Alexis at October 27, 2004 3:31 PM
