Would You Like My Seat?

Brooklyn-bound A-train, Wednesday evening. It's about 8:45, and a woman with a cane gets on the train at Columbus Circle. There are plenty of empty seats at this point, but she chooses to remain standing. At 42 St, a whole horde boards the train, and all empty seats are quickly filled. One man, after sitting down, notices the woman with the cane, who is still standing. He springs out of the seat, takes her elbow, and offers her his seat. She smiles and politely declines. He offers again. She thanks him again but tells him that she prefers to stand. He does not accept this, and continues to badger her to take his seat. She finally says, "I'll tell you what--if I change my mind, I'll ask you to get up."
"Well, would you rather I ask someone else to give up their seat?" he responds. Everyone within earshot starts laughing. We pull into 34th St, and he obviously decides that this is the best suggestion. He gets up again and stands in front of a triple-seat. "Alright," he says, "everybody up." So saying, he makes all three (oddly unprotesting) passengers stand up, then, with a flourish, directs the now-exhausted woman to the completely empty bench. She sits down with a smile and slight eyeroll. One of the displaced passengers sneaks around behind and snatches the man's former seat.
As we pull into 14th St, I stand to exit. The man takes my seat, saying loudly, "Whew! It's good to be able to sit down!"

The Beatbox Lumberjack

It was the day after Thanksgiving, and the Brooklyn-bound A-train was much less crowded than I would have expected, given all the Black Friday announcements during the weeks before. I was sitting at one end of an otherwise empty triple-seat, and across from me was a grizzled sixtyish man in a lumberjack jacket with a fur Cossack hat that was pulled down over his eyes. I thought that he was asleep, but as we pulled out of the next stop, he started to sing what I can only guess was a song that he was making up on the spot in a voice that sounded like it was seldom used for speech, let alone song. At the same time, a bickering couple had joined me on my bench. As he sang, the lumberjack's voice grew stronger, and he started to do NKOTB-style arm gestures to accompany his song. (Since he was holding a paper cup of coffee at the same, this was not only odd, but also messy.) One of the men in the couple beside me looked across the car and suddenly started beatboxing along with the ever louder song.
"What are you doing?" asked the other man in the couple.
The first man stopped his percussing. "You always say that I'm too introverted, so I'm expressing myself." He then resumed. I felt like I was stuck in the episode of Modern Family in which Mitchell joins a flashmob to impress Cameron. His partner looked shocked, but then smiled.
The lumberjack got off at the next stop, having fully roused himself at this point, and also having spilled all of the remaining coffee. He continued to sing as he left the train, and once he reached the stairs of the platform, he started dancing down them as though he were in a 1950s musical. The couple did not bicker for the rest of the ride.

The Peripatetic Christmas Tree

As I entered the station at 175th St last night, I heard a strange melody rising from its depths. Upon arriving on the platform, I saw an apparently homeless man, bundled in many layers, and pushing a shopping cart down the platform. His cart contained the usual assortment of black garbage bags and tattered blankets, but on top, perched somewhat precariously, was a miniature but fully decorated Christmas tree. The man was slurring his way through several somewhat jumbled Christmas carols, his mournful tone in direct contrast to both the joyful lyrics and the twinkling tree. When the train finally arrived, the man did not get on, but continued to pace the platform, singing to his little tree.

Subway Calisthenics

New Yorkers lead busy lives and have tiny apartments. There's really no room to house bulky exercise equipment, and who has time to go to the gym? Why not just follow this man's example, and use the subway as your elliptical machine/ThighMaster/that fancy thing with the bars. It's a little hard to see in the picture, but when we got on the Manhattan-bound A at Jay St, this guy was already well into a clearly well-honed exercise routine. He switched smoothly between pull-ups on the overhead bar and quad-sits (or whatever they're called) in front of the seat. While I have no idea how many sets he did before we got on the train, he did four between Jay St and West 4th, when he finally got off the train, having, at this point, shed several layers of clothing and resorted to a very audible focused breathing routine.

This Ain't Free!

Sunday evening, heading down the stairs for a Brooklyn-bound F-train at West 4th. As I was descending, I heard some pretty impressive drumming, and when I got to the platform, I saw a man who had set up a full drum battery and was going crazy on it. He was great. Two tourists stopped in front of him, and one of them whipped out his iPhone to make a video. A few seconds later, the drummer noticed the man recording him and immediately stopped playing. "What are you doing?" he asked. The tourist looked surprised, but kept on filming. The drummer pointed to a plastic cup on the floor with one of his sticks. "This ain't free!" he said. "You want a show, you pay for a show! I ain't gonna let you film me without a donation."
"You want money?" responded the tourist, taken aback. "I don't have any money. I just wanted a souvenir."
The drummer stood up. "You want a souvenir, you pay for a souvenir. You put money in that cup, you get your souvenir."
As I walked down the platform, I could hear them squabbling behind me. All of a sudden, the arguing stopped, and the drumming resumed. I can only surmise that the tourist had either paid the drummer in bills or left the platform in shame, since I never heard the clink of coins.

The Casting Car

I understand that there are many aspiring actors/actresses in NYC. It's one of the many things that adds to the city's charm. That being said, I was rather surprised to encounter all of them in the same car of the downtown E-train at 9:30 on Wednesday evening. Seated on either side of me was a man, dressed all in black, intently reading a script. Across from me was a woman, wearing more makeup than I've ever seen on a single face, perusing a stack of her own headshots. No fewer than three young ingenues were actually delivering soliloquies out loud to the unintentional audience around them. (Actually, to be fair, only one of them was bellowing her part--the other two were muttering theirs, but super-audibly.) The best, however, was the girl who was either rehearsing for Mary Poppins, which is currently playing on Broadway, or attempting to seduce any chimney sweeps who may have been lurking on the train, as she kept on singing the chorus to "A Spoonful of Sugar" at the top of her voice, only to interrupt herself by shouting "Supercallifragillous!"
Next time I get on the E, I'll have to bring two friends with me and stage Coppenhagen.

Price Check on the E-Train

Saturday morning. Having just come from Trader Joe's, I'm waiting on the platform at 23rd St to catch a C or E train. I've already had to move to two new spots on the platform because a boy, about 14, with thick glasses clearly containing the wrong prescription, has nearly knocked me over twice in trying to get closer to the signs to see which trains are running this weekend. An E finally pulls in, and as I'm getting on, a young woman asks if this the train "downtown to 168th". I explain that 168th is uptown and ask where she's going. She looks confused, and the doors are about to close, so I tell her to get on the train and I'll give her directions. She does, and after considerable back-and-forth, I discover that she's trying to get to 96th and Broadway. I tell her that she needs to get off at either 34th or 42nd and transfer to the C. She is confused again, and since I'm getting off to transfer at 42nd myself, I suggest that she transfer there as well so that I can show her what to do.
Just then, as we are pulling in to 34th St, two very tall men, who are in the process of making a verbal grocery shopping list, peer into my bags and one says, "Maybe she'll sell us her milk and bananas and then we don't have to go to the store after all!" Laughing, I tell them that I haven't bought milk, but they're welcome to a banana. We all chuckle. All, that is, but the woman, who is now convinced that the subway is dangerous because people try to steal your groceries (!). She decides to get off at 34th to flee the dangerous train. As she's leaving, I tell her to wait at the same platform for the C, but as the doors are closing she says, "But this is the platform for the E!"
I wonder where she is now?

Merry Christmaween

It's one o'clock in the morning on Halloween and I'm dashing across the Jay St platform from the F to the A to head back to Manhattan from a party in Brooklyn. I am dressed as Batgirl, and the car, which is already filled with people, sports several Men In Black, a pair of 20s gangsters, the Pillsbury Doughboy, Raggedy Ann, a couple of "cats" (and by that I mean the generic skanky outfit with ears that passes as a costume in some circles), the cast of the Jersey Shore, and an assortment of others. In fact, there was exactly one person in the whole car who was not in costume, and she looked terrified to be there. Most of the people on the train had clearly been imbibing, and it was a pretty lively car. The Pillsbury Doughboy decided to start singing Christmas carols--according to his friends, this was his typical drunken behavior--and started taking requests. Receiving none, he launched into the absolute LOUDEST version of Rudolph that I have ever heard. This apparently annoyed the Men In Black, who started asking for Frosty the Snowman, shouting "Sing Frosty or nothing!" The Doughboy did not oblige, but instead moved on to Silent Night when he'd finished with Rudolph. Thwarted, the MIB got off at Canal St, and Doughboy left with his friends at 14th St. Poor Raggedy Ann was very raggedy indeed, and had to be helped off the train by her slightly more sober friends.

The Hot Seat

The uptown A-train, Wednesday, 10:30 pm. I got on at 14th St and sat in the inner seat of one of the little two-seaters that stick out perpendicularly from the walls of the train. A 25-ish man, who looked rather like a Muppet, sat down beside me, holding a small plastic pumpkin in his lap. He clearly should have had a book or a iPhone rather than a pumpkin, because he was incapable of entertaining himself. Instead, he proceeded to interview every single person who had the misfortune of sitting in the seat immediately in front of us. The first woman, who was already sitting there when we got on, either had the good fortune or incredible insight to pretend that she did not speak English, so she escaped unscathed. At 59th St, an elderly woman got on holding a playbill. My companion immediately began grilling her. "Did you see a show? What was it? Yo-Yo Ma? You saw Yo-Yo Ma? I didn't even know that he was in town! I've been here for six months, and I've already seen Elton John." (Um... yay?) "How many people were in the audience? Do you have a subscription to Carnegie Hall? Really? Oh, how lucky! Does that mean that you always sit in the same seats? Are the seats comfortable?"
The woman held her own, and eventually, (perhaps to shut him up,) started just reading the playbill out loud to him. Every word. Including the advertisements. It was scintillating. Finally, she got off at 125th, and her seat was then taken by a very tired-looking man.
My seatmate quickly moved on to his next victim. "What's that around your neck? Is it a compass? Does your compass work underground? Did you buy it at a flea market?" (It was, in fact, a compass, and no, he had not bought it at a flea market. Perhaps he was trying to start a new millennium trend like Flava Flav's clock?) The poor compass man happily exited the train at 145th, and his seat was left vacant. I rode in blissful silence until my final stop.

How to Become a Subway Preacher

Is anyone else concerned that one of the people preaching the end of the world works as a psychiatric social worker?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/nyregion/24preachers.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

It's The End Of The World As We Know It... And I Feel Fine

Sunday afternoon. I was transferring between the A and the N at Times Square, which involved a looooong underground walk between 7th and 8th Avenues. Every time I go through that tunnel, there are people handing out fliers about the end of the world. According to them, it's supposed to be ending on May 18, 2011. Perhaps I should start working on my bucket list? Anyhow, today, for the second time, I witnessed one of the end-of-worlders go up to someone in order to pass out a pamphlet, only to be rebuffed with the words, "I'm sorry, the world is actually going to end in June." (Actually, the first time this happened, it may have been a different date, but the gist is the same.) The two got into a very polite but highly convicted argument about the actual expiration date for our planet. (Or is it the universe? I'm never sure what they really mean by "the world". Somehow the science of it seems to be... lacking.) I continued walking, but turned around before taking the at the end of the corridor, and they were still deep in discussion. I think that they should both start handing out pamphlets, and hire a bookie to take bets on who's right. I guess it might be hard to collect one's winnings, though...

Would It Be Rude to Give My Bus Driver a Map?

Okay, so this isn't technically a subway story, but it is a mass transit story, so I'm going to post it anyhow. Although I live in Manhattan, I work in NJ, so I cross the George Washington Bridge by bus everyday. It is normally a lovely commute--17 min in the morning, and I always sit on the driver's side heading out in order to admire the skyline as we cross the bridge. This morning, however, was not a typical morning. There was a fatal accident on the bridge at 5:15 am, and the police closed the outbound upper deck to traffic in order to investigate. My bus normally leaves at 7:30 from the GWB Bus Terminal, and we pulled out of the station as scheduled. Buses are not allowed on the lower deck of the bridge, however, so I wasn't sure where we were going to go. Neither, however, was the bus driver. For those of you unfamiliar with NYC geography, there are three routes out of the city across the Hudson into NJ: the George Washington Bridge, the Lincoln Tunnel (maybe 8 mi south of the bridge), and the Holland Tunnel (farther south than that). Once you get out of the city, the next crossing is the Tappan Zee Bridge, which is about 20 mi north of the city. So when we left the bridge, I figured that we'd either go south to the Lincoln Tunnel or north to the Tappan Zee. But no. Instead, the driver started to go east. And then continued east. And then... went even farther east. Really? Did he not realize that we were headed in the wrong direction? So rather than finding an alternate route over the Hudson, we got a tour of the Bronx. (And by a tour, I mean we sat in the incredible gridlock that paralyzed both boroughs.) I was tempted to just give up and get off the bus and hop on the subway to go home, but then I looked outside. Suffice it to say that we were not in the best of neighborhoods... Although I spent most of the time reading my book and talking on the phone with my dad, I did check Google Maps on my phone periodically to verify that yes, in fact, we had gone all the way to the Bruckner. I've included a helpful map to show our bus driver's route. The blue is the route that we took. See the yellow highway across the Hudson? Yeah, that's where we should have gone. After an hour and a half, I went up to the driver to ask what was going on and if we'd be taking either the Tappan Zee or the tunnel. He said no, we were heading back to the GWB. "Oh," I said, "have they reopened it?" His response? "I don't know." Excellent.

Fortunately, by the time we made it back through the clogged streets to the bridge, it had in fact reopened. I finally got off the bus at 10:11. My 17 min commute only took me 2 hours and 49 min. But at least I got a scenic tour of the Bronx.

"Now Repeat That Back..."

This happened a few weeks ago, but I'm posting now in the spirit of "better late than never". Weekend afternoon, heading uptown on the A-train. A teenage couple was fighting very melodramatically. Suffice it to say that "oh no you dih-un't" was uttered more than once. While this was going on, a fifty-ish Australian man was trying to figure out his route into Queens, but was clearly puzzled by his subway map. A young woman tried to help him, but she didn't seem to be much more familiar with the subway system than he was. They were standing right in front of the quarreling teenagers, looking alternately at handheld maps and the one on the train itself. Suddenly, the teenage boy said, "Hold on," to his girlfriend and then addressed the Australian man. "Here's what you want to do," he said. He then proceeded to very clearly lay out a detailed set of directions for the tourist, involving about three different trains. Once he was done, he told the tourist (who was at least thirty years his senior), "Okay, now repeat that back to me." The Aussie tried to do so, but got mixed up. The teenager patiently reiterated his directions, and then once again had the older man repeat the instructions. This went on until the tourist got the instructions right. The teenager then turned back to his girlfriend and resumed the fight. Once we got to the Aussie's stop, the teenager held his hand up to the girlfriend, who was mid-tirade at this point, and turned to the man. "Get off here, and you know what to do. Just go up those stairs over there. Have a nice day!" The man smiled and got off the train. The doors closed behind him, and the teenagers resumed their fight.

Music Soothes All Souls

1-train, around 6:45 pm on a Saturday. As usual on the weekend, the MTA is doing all kinds of construction, so the train is super-crowded. An elderly Sikh man gets on at 103rd, carrying a very awkward-looking bag out in front him. He is wearing a small radio around his neck, which he has cranked up all the way and is blasting opera. Someone offers him a seat, which he accepts, and then he arranges the bag carefully on his lap. It seems to be moving of its own volition, and suddenly, a very tiny dog pokes its scrawny head out of the top. The dog seems agitated, so the man turns up the music even louder, which I would not have believed to be possible given the tiny (and tinny) speakers. A few people look annoyed, and the man announces, "Opera calms his nerves." The dog ducks back into the bag, and the man gets off two stations later.

The Green Goblin

This guy got on the A at West 4th. Two tourists excitedly posed with him at various points while asking other riders to take their pictures. He got off at Columbus Circle, although he had to be guided through the doors by his friend, who was forward-thinking enough NOT to have blinded herself by wearing a body-stocking that lacked eyeholes. Maybe he needed to stock up at Whole Foods?

Welcome to NYC!

I’m here! It’s 11 am, and my luggage and I have arrived at Penn Station. I need to head up to Washington Heights to greet the movers, so I hop on the A. A diminutive Hispanic man with a guitar gets on the train with me, and once we start moving, he announces, “Ladies and gentlemen, I am going to entertain you.” He then proceeds to start singing what I can only presume are well-known folk songs, because although I am ignorant, the woman across from me immediately joins in, the man beside me starts humming along, and several people are mouthing the words. When we get to 42nd St, however, another man gets on who is clearly not all there. He’s muttering and shouting to himself, and starts yelling, “I’m psychic! They shouldn’t have thrown me in jail. I’m psychic, man, I’m PSYCHIC!” Everyone looks a little nervous, and the man with the guitar stops playing.

Suddenly, a HUGE guy at the other end of the car stands up and says, “Dude, you ain’t psychic.” The crazy guy looks at him for a second, then hangs his head and steps back off the train. The doors close, and the guy with the guitar resumes his song mid-verse, and everyone joins in again. I am so excited to be in New York!