I’m seeing more and more folks in the New York City subways wearing vests that say “Platform Controller.” The people who wear them carry flashlights to signal to the conductors when they can close the doors and sometimes they shout instructions to stand aside to let people off and not block the doors when people are trying to get on. They provide a sense of order to what often feels like chaos, especially during rush hour, but lately they seem to be the only strategy the MTA is applying to address the growing delays that are snarling travel.
The Union Square subway station is full of emotional Post-its mourning the outcome of the election. What’s remarkable isn’t the sheer quantity. What’s remarkable is that three weeks after the election no one has torn them down. I would have thought a Trump supporter would have tried; or someone tasked with cleaning the subway would have done it. At the very least, I’d expect a homeless person to hear a voice telling him to do so.
Maybe people are taking them down and other people are adding new ones every day. In any event, it’s a remarkable record of the shock, grief and fear generated by Trump’s victory.
Two days after the election near midnight on an express train on the Broadway line, I heard a man, who appeared to be homeless, shout-mumble as he stood by the door: “There ain’t going to be no woman in the White House. No way! Yeah, build the wall, build it.”
Times Square has always been a crossroads of contrasts. Its old image–as an epicenter of porn and depravity–contrasts with its newer identity as a showcase for Disney and so-called wholesome (i.e. commercial) family fun in the form of Applebee’s and Ripley’s Believe it or Not. And yet (in another contrast), pockets of porn still linger, side-by-side with packed tour buses and Broadway theaters. There’s also the wealth of the world travelers who clog the sidewalk contrasted with the growing number of homeless who sleep on it. And this video shows a musical contrast in the Times Square subway station: a Michael Jackson wannabee dancing within earshot of an Amish chorus.
So this guy sits down and just starts drawing the guy opposite him. Takes him about 90 seconds to produce a picture. Enough time to create a pleasing likeness and elicit a donation from the subject, who takes the rendering with a smile.
It took me two days to read this note. On the first, I was carried along by the rush hour crowd, and anyone with sense never stops on subway stairs at such a moment. The crowd is unforgiving (because it’s composed of individuals like me who are very unforgiving when someone blocks the flow). The next day, however, I was ready with phone in hand. I waited for the surge of people to pass and then paused long enough to take a snapshot. Although I’m posting this under the date when I took the picture, I’m actually writing this several weeks later and can report that while graffiti often lingers in this city for months and years, this little bit of advice was was scrubbed away a couple weeks ago.
I know countless people have photographed the many statues of Tom Otterness‘ Life Underground installation at the 14th St. & 8th Ave. subway station, so there’s no real need to add to the gazillions already spinning through the internet. One of the many charms of the little statues scattered throughout the station is how they’re smoothly integrated into the environment of the station. In this instance, this little guy, who looks like a close relation of Monopoly’s Rich Uncle Pennybags, appears to be waiting patiently for the next subway, presumably so he can take the sack of money he’s clutching to the bank. This day, however, he enjoyed a brief respite from his perpetual waiting as transit workers installed a new pipe within his line of sight, and I felt that this break in the ordinary course of events was worthy of capturing with my cell phone camera.
The crowd is mesmerized by a man on the subway tracks.
Last night I, my husband and our friends had one of those strange yet eerily familiar moments that seem typical of life in New York City where drama unfolds unexpectedly in front of you and yet at (what feels like) a safe distance.
We’d just stepped onto the subway platform at 34th Street and Broadway when a woman ran to the emergency phone near us and began pressing the call button in a panic. Others began shouting at the clerk in her bulletproof booth, and the rest of the crowd was leaning over the edge of the platform, peering toward the far end of the tracks.
“What happened?” my husband asked the woman on the phone. “There’s a guy on the tracks,” she blurted, panting with panic. I assumed the man must have fallen or was pushed. My next thought was he might be suicidal. As we drifted with the crowd toward him, we realized he must be either drunk and/or mentally ill. Although dressed like an ordinary citizen of New York, only someone whose thinking was impaired would act as he did: as if he were simply going for a stroll on the narrow wooden platform over the deadly third rail.
People screamed when it appeared he might topple and some were offering their hands to help lift him back onto the platform. I wondered why the Transit Authority didn’t shut the power, although I imagined it was probably a complicated process. (A question for officials: shouldn’t a simple on-off switch be accessible in emergencies?) Others were mumbling “Where are the police? What’s taking them so long?” A local train and an express train pulled partly into the station, inching along until they came to full stops.
For 15 minutes, the man was the star of a scary show, the focus of the crowd’s collective panic, voyeurism and agitation. Of course, everyone was snapping pictures and taking video (myself included) which seemed both awful and like a perfectly natural thing to do. When the police finally arrived, I’m told (because I stopped looking, fearing the man’s dance on the 3rd rail could only end in tragedy) that they simply grabbed him and pulled him back onto the platform.
I’m sure there’s a lesson in this, but I’m not sure what it is. (That one man has the power to stop two trains?) At least I was happy that the police took decisive action and encouraged that the crowd, rather than demonstrate indifference, showed concern and offered to help, even as we took out our smart phones and documented this strange sad moment from many angles.
Step 1: Make any claim you want in a subway advertisement. Step 2: Add an asterisk. Step 3: At bottom of the advertisement, place an asterisk followed by completely different information, contradicting your original claim. Step 4: Watch the money roll in.
